The Silent God
by Darling Drusilla
Summary: Strength through Battle, Wisdom through Suffering. What does a woman do when her soulmate rejects her? What does a soldier do when his soulmate is gone? She accepts her fate with open arms. He follows, hoping to keep her by his side. Rating bumped due to content.
1. The Call

I do not own Bleach or any other property of Kubo Tite. Likewise, I do not own the Fatal Frame/Zero or Silent Hill series'. I would like to point out that while elements/inspiration are taken from each of these series, this is not a crossover. This is a love story based upon one simple idea.

He had to sneak into Heaven for Rukia, he had walked into Purgatory for Orihime, he would storm Hell for Tatsuki.

~!~

The steady beat and repetitive vocals were soothing as Arisawa Tatsuki ran through the park. The sun was strong, warming her to the very core as she went through her morning ritual. Others were jogging around her, Red Pants had passed her ten minutes ago, jogging beside a pretty young woman more suited to her knees. Sunshine hadn't come out yet, a man who seemed to only wear yellow shirts, although the track team had come and gone.

Tatsuki slowed her pace as her next thoughts hit her.

Everyone had come back, acting as though nothing had happened, as though nothing had changed between them. A part of her wondered if that was correct. Maybe nothing had changed. Maybe Tatsuki had just seen more in their friendship than was actually there. Maybe she would never get them back, because they'd never actually been hers.

Tatsuki shook her head and resumed her original pace.

They had been hers though. Ichigo had been her soul mate and as much as she'd been His. Tatsuki was the one who knew all of their secrets, the one who held them as they cried and acted as their rock. She was the one who assured them life was going to work out for the best, that you needed to keep you will firm and just keep going. She was the one who stood up for them when they couldn't stand up for themselves. She smiled and fought for them, would have died for them or lived for them, whichever her saiai had wanted.

She would have danced for him too.

She would have taken her wig off and worn a nice dress.

She would have done almost anything for any of them.

It hurt.

Tatsuki stopped running when she realized it really did hurt. Something in her chest was burning, stabbing, ripping her very soul apart.

The people she'd been running past we standing above her now, one holding her elbow as he guided her to the ground. The other was calling the hospital, trying to remain calm as they waited.

~!~

"What's happening?"

"I'd dare say she's suffering from a broken heart," Dr. Ishida told Mrs. Arisawa. "Her body is working perfectly, no abnormalities in her heart or lungs, nothing in her brain."

Yuuko pursed her lips as she looked in on her daughter. Her beautiful child, not Dougen's or Kaya's, hers. Yuuko had raised her from a tiny little thing, weak, dying in the maternity ward from a small soul. She knew then what she must do. She knew that she needed an heiress and Tatsuki, beautiful little dragon, lonely little moon, had been the one.

"I would destroy all of Seireitei if I thought it might help," Yuuko finally sighed. The doctor made a noise. "Oh please. You knew I was a witch the moment I stepped foot into this hospital."

"I didn't think you would admit it so readily."

The two stood a moment longer, looking through the glass at the young woman.

"I'm worried."

Dr. Ishida looked at her.

"I'm worried she's going to end up in Shizukami." Yuuko moved closer to the door. "She doesn't belong there, but I fear I have doomed her by making her my own. By stealing her away from death's cold fingers, I have sent her into hell."

~!~

Tatsuki jerked awake, panting for breath as her brain caught up to her body. It was cold, much colder than any place aught to be in the middle of spring. It was also dark, pressing in on her very soul, on the air, upon everything. An eternal dusk, always just at the edge of one's vision; she was not in the real world. Even she knew that much.

The woods around her were dead. Trees clinging woefully to black leaves, grasping them as a mother might cling to her child. Nothing was alive in these woods. Perhaps not even Tatsuki. It stank of sorrow and cruelty, of old blood that would never truly go away and decay that had only just ended.

"Shizukami," Tatsuki whispered.

Her mother had warned her about this. About getting involved with mortals, about loving someone and never going after them, about letting loss consume her soul so very deeply. Now Shizukami had her. The Silent God. She would judge Tatsuki, test her...

Keep her.

Tatsuki continued along the dead wood, following a faded path in the dirt. Gray grass crackled under her feet as bone white twigs struck out from the dust. The woods thinned as she went, the scent of decay stronger, until a singular building entered her vision. Plaster had long since crumbled, breaking away to reveal the pale white beams within the wall. The rushes above were rotted stiff, blackened with mold and from them, she could hear the groans of a young woman. Pained and begging and strangely pleasured.

Tatsuki continued along the path, begging, praying she would not go into the house of rot and lust. She did not want to see the woman inside, did not want to know why or what was being done to her.

Thankfully, Tatsuki's path continued past the house. It wound down into a small village. The faded dirt path becoming stronger, paved with pale white stones, as it broke off into different directions. Each winding steam led her to a different house.

One of the houses was boarded up, lonesome and decrepit, ash covered flowers beneath the windows. It was silent within.

The martial artist swallowed, walking closer to the house, though mindful to keep on the path. The closer the moved to the house, the faster her heart beat. Every step echoed through the town, bouncing off of lonely walls and back into Tatsuki's ears. The ash from the flowers fell off, trickling onto the path beneath Tatsuki's feet until she was almost up to her ankles in it. Coach Yamata's house had burned down five years ago, killing everyone inside. Coach, his two sons, his father. Tatsuki knew this house too well, and to see it standing before her tugged at emotions she'd long since buried.

The teen extended her hand, slim fingers reaching for a board, just a graze of the fingertips, that was all she wanted.

That was all she wanted.

A hand extended from the depths of the boarded door, seeking much the same.

Mottled and swollen, it mirrored her own actions, just a touch.

A touch.

Tatsuki jerked her hand back as the other hand open up. The fingers broke, unnatural in their position as the palm revealed rows upon rows of needle thin teeth. More hands began to extend from the depths of the house, burned and rotting, flesh falling from the bones, all of them reaching for her. Silent in their pleas for touch.

"No," Tatsuki whispered, backing away from the house of ash. "No. No touching."

Touching led to pain and sorrow. Soft touches led to harder touches and tears as people were arrested, dirty eyes accusing. This house had burned down, taking every sinner with it. Every touch it might ever offer, every 'friendly' smile, everything and everyone.

Tatsuki would never let their touch haunt her again. Ever.

~!~

Ichigo stood in the waiting room, waiting for visiting hours to begin. He'd ditched Rukia on the way to school; some story about forgetting his paper.

Why didn't she tell him? Why didn't Rukia or Orihime tell him that Tatsuki was dying in the goddamned hospital? The too clean hospital with the too bright lights was eatign away at his nerves. Bleach and cleaners burned his nose, stronger her than at the clinic. The feeling of looming death was stronger as well. He could actually feel people dying here. Some were calm, going int heir sleep, others fighting tooth and nail to keep going.

"Will you calm down?"

Ichigo shot a look at the quincy. At ten last night, Ichigo had gotten a phone call from Ishida. He'd been trying to call all day, ever since he saw Tatsuki fall tot he ground in the park, heartbeat fading as her soul trickled out of her body. Everytime the phone was answered by Yuzu or Karin or Rukia, never anyone who would pass the message on accurately or correctly. Even Isshin would have done, but no matter when Ishida called, he was met by the wrong person.

"I can't." Ichigo did sit. His legged twitched, bouncing on the ball of his foot. "She's not in there. I can't feel her."

"You can't feel her?" Uryuu looked at Ichigo over his glasses. "I knew you were bad at picking up energy, but-"

"Not like that," Ichigo shook his head. "She's...I can't explain it. But she's not in there. Not completely."

The nurse nodded at them, smiling sadly as she did so, before telling them Tatsuki's room number.

Ichigo's face was grim as he made his way through the halls, faster than he may have normally walked, more aggressive in his demeanor. He barely apologized to the nurse he bumped into; Ishida would take care of it. The halls passed in a blur, doors barely registering and the elevator was simply too slow for his liking. His steps didn't even echo through the tiled halls.

He would have stormed into her room too, but Arisawa Yuuko was sitting at her daughter bedside. Very quietly, Ichigo stepped inside, taking the seat opposite the woman as he looked into the face of his...

"You missed quite a bit," Yuuko spoke, interrupting his broken thought.

"I should have been there. I should have been here." He wanted to shake her awake. It wasn't right seeing her like this. She was hooked up to oxygen and all sorts of tubes and machines. Tatsuki was too pale, too still. Her short ebony strands were gone; a thick cable braid rested on her shoulder, reaching to past her knees. Her figure was strange, free of bindings. Why had she been hiding? It hurt. A sudden wash fo guilt hit him as he realized his sin against the woman on the bed.

"Do they know whats wrong?"

"A great many things are wrong, Kurosaki Ichigo." Yuuko shut her book. "The first of which is where my daughter's soul has gone." Ichigo tried not to flinch at the woman's words. "I can't feel it. Her life force yes, but the rest of her...you know what I'm talking about."

Ichigo nodded.

"I can have someone search Seireitei," Ichigo finally spoke, voice cracking. "But I would have seen it, I would have felt the path open up."

"She isn't there," Yuuko shook her head. She was more than just sad, she was near to sobbing, very nearly broken. "I know she isn't. Our kind doesn't go there."

Ichigo took his gaze from Tatsuki to stare at Mrs. Arisawa. Unconsciously, he slid his hand into Tatsuki's own, thumb making small circles on her skin. Yuuko had a guilty look on her face.

"Tatsuki was born human," Yuuko spoke. "Human and weak, her heart should have given out within a month. Her parents agreed to give me Tatsuki in exchange for their son's life. I saved her from death, but you know as well as I that she will not be cheated. Not by my kind or yours."

"What is your kind?" Ichigo asked.

"Our kind has no name. We live outside of the cycle of life and death," Yuuko answered. "When one of us tires, we give our very being to the next generation, living on in a new being and a new vessel. My essance had been around for a very long time. In the beginning, I took Tatsuki only as a vessel. I sought to live on through her, to replace her consciousness with my own."

Ichigo didn't need to hear the rest. Yuuko had obviously changed her mind.

"Her life force, the energy that drives her being is my own. I have given myself to her since I took her as my own. When she wakes, I will continue to feed her soul until I am gone."

"Why when she wakes?" Ichigo asked. "Why not now, it could wake her up."

Yuuko shook her head. "No. If I gave her my soul, Shizukami would shift and twist, I would take her from her hell and place her in my own, and I have seen many more evils than she."

The clock ticked.

"How do I go get her?"

"Excuse me?"

"How do I go and get her?" Ichigo asked again. "We know where she is, tell me how to get there so I can bring her back." Ichigo didn't take his gaze from Tatsuki's face. He could feel Yuuko's eyes on him. "Tell me how to get her."

"It will cost you."

"Fine."

Ichigo brushed a strand from her face. Maybe he could talk her into wearing her hair down when she woke up.

"Tonight is a full moon." Yuuko stood from her seat, leaving the book on the bed. "I will return with the items needed for the spell. I suggest you prepare to pay the price."

Yuuko left the room, taking the energy he'd always associated with Tatsuki with her.

Two heartbeats thumped in time with the machinery as Ichigo picked up the book. "Sleep priestess, lie in peace..."

Ichigo was in the second chapter of the book when someone joined him. Ishida had finally entered, carrying a foam cup of coffee for each of them. His rival, the single person who pissed Ichigo off more than anyone and perhaps the only person who had known what he was going into from the beginning was his greatest friend. Ishida pulled Yuuko's chair around to sit next to him.

"Does anyone else know yet?" Ichigo finally asked. The book he'd been reading was terrifying; it was Tatsuki's favorite.

"Orihime just found out," Ishida admitted. "She called, asking why we weren't at school. I would assume she's on her way here now."

Ichigo nodded. Ishida had it bad for the busty redhead. If she'd gone to Ishida that night, shown him a single nuance of affection, he didn't doubt that Ishida would have torn heaven down for Inoue.

"She's most likely going to bring the others."

"I know."

Ichigo opened the book again. "Everyone has gone to the other side. I have been left all by myself." Orihime came in, quiet as a mouse as Ichigo read, and stood on Tatsuki's other side. The slightest glance showed tear stained cheeks and puffy eyes. Ichigo continued on with the book, barely aware of others coming in or standing outside of the door. "Those who know pain, who know loss of love, shall be engraved with Holly. If I have lost you, I shall willingly bear this mark." Ichigo's heart clenched in his chest. "If it is decided that I can never see you again, then I shall sleep for all eternity." Ichigo closed the book as he recited the final line. "I can save others with the same pain."

It was Rukia who spoke up after his final line.

"It's beautiful."

"It's sad," Orihime countered. "It's more than sad, it's tragic."

"It's her favorite." Ichigo set the book in his lap, returning his hand to Tatsuki's as he looked around those gathered in the room. Aside from himself and Ishida, four others had joined them. Orihime and Rukia first amongst them, along with Chad and an entirely too familiar cat. Ichigo didn't think Yoroichi even knew Tatsuki. He said as much.

"What are you talking about?" A feline nose was stuck in the air. "It just so happens I've been living with her witch of a mother since I came to earth." Yoroichi jumped onto the blankets. "Tatsuki has been my favorite for many years boy."

Ichigo wondered if Tatsuki even knew. Something struck him.

"You said you've been living with them...what can you tell us about Shizukami?" The spirit stiffened on the sheets. "You must have heard of it, and Yuuko-san isn't saying anything about it."

Yoroichi sighed, kitty shoulders sagging as she began to explain just what Shizukami was. The Silent God, the true god of death and rebirth, she was cold and cruel subjecting her agents to a hellish realm built on their own fears and insecurities. If they failed her tests, Shizukami would keep them in her village, either protecting them or punishing them as needed.

"I've never been inside, but it is not uncommon for one of Yuuko's kind to remain within. They succumb to the pain and loss within their hearts or they go mad and become violent, vengeful spirits." Yoroichi looked hard at Ichigo. "That book you're reading is a diary Yuuko-san found on her journey within Shizukami."

"Whose was it?" Orihime asked softly. The story had taken on an entirely new meaning.

"It belonged to Yuuko-san's sister. She didn't make it out."

~!~

The white stones echoed hollow beneath her feet as she continued on through the village. The ash had never left after Coach Yamata's husk of a house. Instead, it had followed her, falling hot from the sky as she walked through the village. It burned her skin where it fell, not too badly, but enough for her to feel pain. Let it fall. She had no regrets.

Tatsuki's path led her to a grouping of three burned houses. One on either side, her path refusing to lead her over tot hem, and one straight ahead of her, the path leading straight through. The teen glanced back, breath catching as she saw her path slowly fading behind her. Shizukami wanted her to move forward.

"I guess I don't have a choice," Tatsuki whispered quietly. She could never shout here. It felt wrong to even speak in this silent realm. Tatsuki lifted her foot over the threshold, gasping the moment her foot touched the ground on the other side.

Th ash was falling falling heavier within the house, no longer hot, but icy cold. It was snowing. A falling sensation took a hold of her, pulling her towards the earth and burying her hands in the icy cold. The house around her was gone, replaced by broken tombstones and rotting holly. Stark white surrounded her everywhere, save for the vibrant berries of the bush beside her. Bloody red and sinister, they taunted her, reminded her of life within this realm. A wicked life.

Her sense of balance returned. Tatsuki stood in the snowy field, looking around herself for the village or even a full graveyard. A single home stood in the distance, a great shadow in this everlasting dusk. All around it's base, reddish orange lanterns glowed with the same wickedness and lust the berries held. But while the holly berries tempted her, the lanterns demanded, piercing the cool depths of the sky and illuminating the shadowy manor in spike of vibrant light. The more she looked at the house, the more details Tatsuki could make out.

"Aunt Tsuki."

This was Tsuki's hell. Detailed so vaguely in her diary, and yet Tatsuki had dreamed of this house often when she was young. It didn't make any sense, and yet, it did. Tatsuki had always felt a bond with her lost aunt. Their situations were always too similar, their loves lost to them, leaving them alone and in danger. Once upon a time, she'd dreamed of rescuing her lost aunt.

Tatsuki shivered as a bitter wind blew against her skin.

"Yeah, I'm coming."

Tatsuki continued along the white stone path, noticing that the stones were changing every so slightly, cracks and ridges becoming exposed until several of them were obvious skulls. The cracks in the skulls became wider, thick liquid sticking the Tatsuki's soles with every step she took. The snow continued to fall, pure white until it hit the path and dissolved into crimson droplets.

The path up to the house smoothed out once more, ivory bones turning into slabs of granite as it led up up to the manor's front door.

No hand reached out for her. Her path remained behind her, leading into nothingness and shadow. She could hear whispered screams in both directions. Maddened and pained screams and even laughter could be heard all around her.

The teen extended her hand to the wrought iron door handle and pulled it open before entering the manor.

It was not warm within the house, nor was it cold. A steady coolness clung to the air and the wood. The reddish light from the yard seemed to come from the very walls in here, though it was dim and lesser than the lanterns. The room itself was strange, an open ceiling leading to an inky black sky above her. The snow she'd known only moments before was gone.

She rather wished it might come back.

A mound of earth and broken graves were collected in the center of the courtyard, stacked upon one another in a mess. Bars of rusted steel and ivory poked out from the soil.

Tatsuki moved closer to the mound of graves, a glinting object at the base of the pile had caught her eye. A clean shaft of steel was buried in the dirt. A modern switchblade, left behind by some other heiress on her journey. The edge was sharp thankfully, and the five inch blade -while short- was better than nothing in this world.

Tatsuki stood, bringing the blade up with her as she did so. A door stood on the other end of the courtyard, old an ancient, as decrepit as the wood she awoke in. the cold wind was pushing her towards the door, this time bringing the painfully cold snow with it. Though the door appeared fragile, it slid upon easy enough, strong despite its age and appearance.

Unlike the graveyard she'd just passed through, the room she entered was not dead. Veins of blue and red liquid were trickling down the walls to the floor, pooling on the floor. The floor was drinking it in, pulsing beneath her feet as her heart beat in her chest. The entrance hall was nearly empty with two doors at each end and a small hearth directly in front of her.

She did not want to look in the hearth, but Tsuki's diary had mentioned it many times, there had to be a reason it was here.

Tatsuki moved forward, blade still in hand as she knelt on the floor to look inside. Nothing.

Nothing at all.

Tatsuki glanced around the room before patting herself down. She'd tucked her ID into the waistband of her jogging skapri's, along with a five yen note and her keys. The martial artist placed her id within the hearth; she would not come out of this the same woman, why pretend she might? She stood after closing the door to the hearth, noting that the room around her had changed ever so slightly.

A flash of orange hair and black robes caught her attention. The sound of steel being drawn rang throughout the hall, even though the figure was out of sight.

"What the hell?" Tatsuki took a step back, wondering if she'd really seen Ichigo walking down the hall to her right. "Ichigo?"

There was no sound save her heartbeat.

~!~!~!~!~

The grief that does not speak, whispers to the o'er fraught heart and bids it break.


	2. The Sorrow

Ichigo waited on the hospital roof. Yuuko was drawing out the spell in vibrant red liquid, arcane symbols sizzling on the stone as her massive brush slid across the roof. Ichigo was leaning against the edge, watching her perform the rite. He could feel the magic in her movements, so very similar to tatsuki's energy, but smokier.

The others were standing to his right, waiting just as patiently as Ichigo himself.

Yuuko made her final brush stroke, tossing the glorified mop to the side before stepping forward. She was careful to avoid the circle itself, pulling her robes well away from the markings. The reddish liquid was shifting in color now, back and forth it went from an acidic orange to red to sorrowful indigo.

"Do you have the payment?" Yuuko asked Ichigo.

"You never told me the price."

"And yet, you agreed," Yuuko smiled at him. She walked closer to him. "In your pocket, there is a ribbon."

Ichigo pursed his lips before reaching into his pocket and handing the silken strand over. The vibrant crimson silk held many memories for Ichigo. The first and most important was when Tatsuki gave it to him. Often, if Ichigo could hold his mother's hand, he would hold onto her necklace. But the chain had broken, sending the little boy into tears. Tatsuki had come over to him, scowling as she pulled the ribbon from her hair and threaded it through the charm.

"She's given it to you many times, hasn't she?" Yuuko asked, turning the red silk over in her hands.

"More than I deserved."

"Step into the circle, Kurosaki Ichigo."

Ichigo did as told. The moment his foot entered the circle, a bizarre tingling overcame him. From the soles of his feet to his fingertips, even his hair seemed to buzz with Silence.

"Wait, I thought we were all going?"

Orihime's words were understood by the boy in the circle, but he didn't hear them. He couldn't hear anything other than his own heartbeat and the steady thrum of Shizukami.

"Then you must all pay a price," Yuuko shrugged.

Ichigo saw Orihime step up first, handing over a photograph before Yuuko could even say anything. A strip from a photo booth. Yuuko smiled and nodded, and another heartbeat joined Ichigo's ears. Sado was next, handing over a hair tie. He'd known Tatsuki's scret regarding her hair. His heart was strong, a low bass added the the rhythm. Ishida's price was a bit different, having no real attachment to Tatsuki, he was forced to surrender his cell phone.

"Don't run up my bill," Ishida scowled as he stepped into the circle.

Yuuko only smiled, though it turned to a frown as she observed the last individual.

"And why would you want to go?"

"There are souls trapped-"

"And they will remain as such," Yuuko cut her off. "You do not serve our silent god, you do not respect her, you have no right to send the souls in Shizukami to your realm." Yuuko calmed herself before she spoke once more. "The souls within shizukami may only be sent by a priestess. If they are to be sent, they will be taken care of by my daughter."

Yuuko turned away from the shinigami, facing those within the circle. No longer a well groomed CEO, the woman had become an intimidating sorceress of power, wise and cold. Her dove gray suit was gone, replaced instead by voluminous robes of scarlet and indigo.

"You shall return to the real world as the sun rises," Yuuko spake. "With, or without my daughter in your possession. Should you fail to return with her, you will be sent into Shizukami upon the setting of the sun. This process will continue until you have reclaimed my heir from Shizukami." Yuuko closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Two amongst you may send souls without punishment. One may destroy them without guilt. And one may restore them without fear."

Yuuko opened her eyes. They were glowing with a sorrowful indigo light and her voice floated across the circle, a whisper pounding in their ears. The tingling sensation they'd previously known had intensified from an uncomfortable buzz to a near painful feeling, as though thousands of needles with tattoing their skin all at once.

Tatsuki followed the blur of orange and black down the hall, curious as to why Ichigo would be here of all places. He had Rukia to listen to. He had Orihime to go dote upon.

Tatsuki shook her head, hardly aware of the shadows that had been reaching for her as her thoughts turned dark. They recoiled as she pulled herself from her negativity, falling back to the dark wood of the walls.

At Every corner, Tatsuki was certain she would finally catch up to Ichigo. But he was always one step ahead of her. Until the twisting hall opened up into a large room, a sitting room or a meeting room perhaps. IT held a certain similarity to the dojo she'd met Ichigo in so many years ago, though the padded mats were replaced instead by frayed tatami, several large cushions still in place. A wide black stain sprayed across the floor, covering the cushions and tatami both. The more Tatsuki looked at the stain however, the more she realized it extended much further than she'd previously thoguht. There were many more bloodstians than she'd previously though there to be, the largest of which Tatsuki was standing in the very middle of.

"Fuck," Tatsuki whispered as the blackened stain began to moisten.

A flash of orange caught her eye again.

It was not Ichigo. The massive sword, the bright warmth of the head, the dark shadows surrounding the body. A rusted, reddish orange helmet covered his features, triangular and huge, muddied with substances Tatsuki didn't want to name. Black ash covered gray skin while stained pants covered his lower body.

The creature was coming straight for her, raising his sword. Slow and fast all at Once, Tatsuki tripped over a torn tatami as she tried to escape the mighty blade.

A gurgling sounded behind Tatsuki. The marital artist rolled to the side before she looked at whatever had been standing behind her. A man had been standing behind her with a hatchet, face masked as he stood in pristine white. He was turning for her, raising his hatchet just as the pyramid headed monster raised his own sword.

The man in white fell into two pieces and her feet, blood pooling thickly out of his form. The sword bearing figure continued hacking at the ghost, rage coming from beneath his helmet as the man in white started putting himself back together. With every hack and chop, the blood multiplied, surrounding Tatsuki on the floor and soaking through her running pants. It stung, cold and furious with her.

Tatsuki was not going to wait until one or the other was finished, nor was she going to sit in the painful liquid. Scooting back on the now blood soaked floor, the martial artist stood and ran from the two monsters behind her. A switchblade was no use against either of the masked men. As she ran, the blood on the floor pooled behind her, chasing her from the room. It followed her down a twisting corridor, staining the wood and the shoji until finally, she burst from the hall into a courtyard.

The blood stopped at the threshold, sinking in between the floorboards sluggishly.

She let out a shaking breath, clenching the switchblade in her hand as she tried to calm down. The thundering of her heart was too loud in her ears.

She wanted Silence.

Letting out another breath, Tatsuki slid the door shut and turned to see what she had walked into.

It was calm, peaceful, and silent in this courtyard. A rather large courtyard made up of a deep, inset pool. The water within was clear and calm, flowing around an alter made of black marble. This was safe. Tatsuki hopped from the deck to the marble alter, breathing a sigh of relief as the Silent God wrapped her arms about Tatsuki's being.

Ichigo fell to his knees, teeth grit as Yuuko's spell wore off and his spirit adjusted to Shizukami.

Seireitei had radiated with spiritual energy, malevolent and benign, strong and weak. There were human souls and spirits in that realm, each waiting to continue on to the next life. Hueco Mundo had a steady pulse of negative energy, strong and unyielding, devouring itself. Monsters had lived there, anger had lived there.

Shizukami was dead. The energy of souls was gone, he could sense nothing but the spirit of those he'd entered with. A true god of Death ruled this world. He could feel her watching them.

There was a faint pulse, distant, that he knew to be Tatsuki. Shizukami was surrounding her.

"Everyone make ti through okay?" Ichigo asked, looking at those surrounding him. They'd landed on a large stone platform, surrounded by crimson and indigo posts. Each post bore a different set of symbols, matching those on the circle Yuuko had drawn, giving off a sickly glow.

"Fine," Chad spoke, already standing.

"All here," Ishida agreed, sitting up on the blackened ground. "This is where Tatsuki is?"

"I don't think so," Ichigo shook his head. "But she might have passed through. Orhime?"

"Fine." The ginger haired teen was holding her stomach, nodding as she pushed herself to stand. "Not fine."

Ichigo took a step back as Orihime emptied her stomach onto the ground. The bile soaked into the earth as the various bits turned to ash floated away on the breeze. Everything withered in this place, even if it wasn't truly living.

"We need to get going," Ichigo spoke as Orihime stood upright once more.

"Give her a moment," Ishida scowled.

"Every moment we delay Tatsuki is getting further and further into this place." Ichigo turned and started towards a path. "Every moment, she could end up dead or worse."

Orihime stopped Ishida's argument, moving towards the path in silent agreement. She wiped at the corner of her mouth as she looked around them, eyes filling with sadness as she took in the scorched landscape. Charred remains of flora and fauna surrounded them. Some falling to the ground in a pile of ash while other's crumbled in chunks.

The path was winding through and around the corpses, through beasts large enough to eat them whole and between things the size of small children.

A black tenticle shot up from the edge of the path, wrapping around the strip of stone and pulling something massive and moving from the dirt beneath. It was almost female, bound in a filthy red haori. The creature didn't have hands or feet, it barely had arms and legs, but something head like was opening a vertical mouth, wet and cavernous, and moaning at him. A club like arm swung at him, blade erupting from the fleshy bulb at the end.

Ichigo pulled his sword free without a thought, cutting the twisted creature down. The creature burned away from it's wound out, still moaning and writhing as it burned up.

"Ichigo."

Ichigo turned when Chad spoke his name. Another creature was pulling itself up onto the path behind them.

"Take it out and lets keep moving," Ichigo told him, finally realizing he had his zanpaktou back.

It was different though. Stronger, perhaps even brighter in spirit than it had been before.

Chad's fist went through the creeping she beast, an explosion of hot cinders lighting up the dusky sky. Ichigo would ponder his zanpaktou at a later time. He had to find Tatsuki.

Tatsuki's eyes were heavy as she tried to open them.

The alter upon which she rest was still safe, she was still safe in this place, but someone was staring at her from across the water. Fair skin was eerily clean, the woman's form was just like Tatsuki's mother, and her hair, long and dark, kept her modesty.

"Tsuki."

As though summoned by her whisper, Tsuki was suddenly standing in front of Tatsuki, eyes bright with indigo light. Blackened lips were pulled into a sad frown as her brows knit together in worry.

"You must finish it," Tsuki's voice whispered. "You must. You must finish the ceremony."

Tatsuki shook her head. "I don't know what you mean."

"You must," Tsuki insisted, moving closer. Tatsuki backed away from the mad woman, noting the shift in her aunt's eyes towards crimson. "You must finish the ceremony."

"I will," Tatsuki breathed out. The Silent God had fled from the alter, leaving the teen alone with the spirit. The waters, once so clear and peaceful had turned dark, lapping hungrily at the edges of the pool.

"You must finish the ceremony, before she returns."

Tatsuki didn't have to ask who her aunt was referring to. Tsuki's eyes had turned crimson before they turned black, so deep and dark Tatsuki felt she could drown. The woman's hand clamped around Tatsuki's wrist, burning as it ground the bones of her wrist together. The ghost threw Tatsuki across the formerly tranquil pool, through a wall and into a mass of bones. She was in front of Tatsuki again, grinning wide as she grabbed a hold of her hair, pulling the martial artist behind her and down the hall.

The laughter of the vengeful spirit chilled Tatsuki to her core, sharp and cruel as it pulled her by the hair.

~!~

"Do ou hear that?" Ichigo asked as they approached a building.

"It sounds like moaning," Ishida nodded.

The white path under their feet was directing them towards a small and dirty house. The rushes atop, rotting away as they slid from the roof in great clumps. The scent of blood and sex was cloying as they moved closer, Ichigo praying with every step that Tatsuki was not within. Since Zangetsu had returned to him, he could feel his inner darkness fading, melding really. This land of Silence was reforming him to her will. Fine. So long as he got Tatsuki back.

Chad's hand was on the door handle when another moan erupted from the house.

"I don't want to go in there," Orihime whispered from Ishida's side.

Chad slid the door open, those behind him wishing they could slide it shut. Within the structure of rot, small, glassy creatures cackled and cracked as they danced around a somewhat larger creature, whipping it with white ribbons. Another female looking creature, though this one was more obvious, more human looking. Tied down by it's own hair, the creature was moaning as a hulking mass tore a chunk from it's body.

One of the glassy creatures noticed them, screeching from a mouth running the length of it's torso. White tendrils shot out from the mouth, the ribbons from before, lined with teeth and barbs. The teens moved out of the way, fully aware that all of the small glass creatures were coming for them now, as the tendril struck the wooden floor.

Orihime was not quite fast enough to dodge one of the other tendrils. The white whip wrapped around her ankle, glass baby pulling itself towards her with a dripping mouth. Tsubaki shot out from her pins, severing the ribbon before shooting through the glass baby.

"It's made from ice," the fae commented as he darted back to Orihime. "I don't suppose you have matches?"

Ishida took the rest of the glass, ice, babies out, arrows shattering the creatures into a fine dust. The female creature in the middle of the room was no longer bound by her hair. She was no longer alive or whole, merely a mess of reddish, moaning, flesh on the ground. The creature that had been devouring her stood, lips smacking with bloody spittle as he laughed.

Without the distractions, Ichigo could see what the creature was. He could see what both creatures were. The woman had been a part of the wooly monster once, a part of this twisted grand fisher. Unlike the one from his memories, this creature was a part of the house itself, the wool nothing but splinters of wood. Unlike the hollow who destroyed his mother, this creature could nto speak, it merely growled and made hungering gutteral noises.

Ichigo pulled his sword once more.

"Focus on the woman," Ichigo told them. The lure was reforming itself, fingers turning to claws as she writhed wantonly on the floorboards. The lure looked too much like Tatsuki. It made him feel and want things he shouldn't even think about.

~!~

Memory was pulling her down the hall, laughing low and wild as she did so, taking delight in Tatsuki's pain as she tossed ice babies out of her way. They shattered against the wood, coating Tatsuki in ice before melting against her skin and coating her in red. She was sliding along the wood, leaving a trail for anyone to follow, specifically the men in the rooms they passed.

With every room they passed, Tatsuki was forced to realize her miseries. Three times Yamata had been in those rooms, touching her. Five times she'd been forced to watch as no one helped or stopped him. As they'd walked past a room, Tatsuki had seen the man in red and black hacking into three Yamata men. She screamed for him, her throat horse from sobs, tasting her own blood and that of the ice babies all at once. The man in black had turned, faster than she expected. Memory had noticed as well, hurrying in her steps, the rooms becoming more graphic until Tatsuki's eyes blurred with tears and her skin crawled. Memory could not escape the man in black anymore than Tatsuki could escape the visions surrounding her.

The possessed woman had tossed Tatsuki in between herself and the bloody knight, snarling as she tried to attack him.

The arm holding onto Tatsuki had been sliced off, the man in black prowling closer to the she bitch as Tatsuki scrambled away. Memory's limb was still holding tight to Tatsuki's hair, maneuvering itself to latch onto her throat as she fought with the masked swordsman. Spots were appearing in Tatsuki's vision as the now bloated hand latched tighter to her neck.

Something white and snarling was very suddenly lunging for her neck, spotted vision warping it.

The spots faded as the sound of steel clashed and snarls combined with roars. The whitish gray creature was swaying as it spat out the arm, wide teeth clacking together as it moved into a crouch by Tatsuki's feet. The skin was cold, she could feel it on her leg as it backed over her form.

"No," Tatsuki whispered, over and again, insistent as it got closer. She could hear her memories playing in the rooms around them and she could feel the loss and rage bubbling around her. The knight and Memory were tearing at each other now, spraying blood across the hall and everything within it.

The whitish gray creature picked her up, hand across her mouth as it climbed out of the manor window and up the outer walls.

Orihime had never known her friend's mind could be so very dark and full of sorrow. Yuuko had explained it very carefully before they left. Shizukami would test Tatsuki, yes, try to break her even, but the Silent God would use Tatsuki's own mind to do so. The monsters and images were from Tatsuki's own heart, darker and crueler than anything Aizen could dream up.

The healer glanced over at Ichigo. He was having a hard time accepting that idea. Orihime could see the guilt eating away at him. After everything they'd done to protect her, to try and keep Tatsuki out of harms way, she ended up in hell. A hell made worse by them and their actions.

Orihime wondered what else they might see in this world of Tatsuki's.

She stopped, grabbing onto Ishida's arm. She could hear someone sobbing ahead of them.

"You can hear that, right?" Orihime asked. Those around her nodded.

"I've heard it for a while now. Since the Fisher house." Ichigo admitted.

"That long?" Ishida asked, adjusting his glasses. "I only heard it a few yards back."

"The Yamata house," Chad spoke, looking around for anything that might attack. Since they first arrived in this land, everything seemed to be looking for blood. The swingers had pounced on them three times, and the ice babies seemed to travel in packs.

"Why did I hear it last?" No one answered her. "It sounds like Tatsuki,"Orihime settled on saying. The sobbing was getting worse, wracked with sorrow and greif. "Maybe we should split up?"

"It's almost dawn," Ishida agreed. "You and Ichigo are the ones who know Tatsuki the best, you each know what is symbolized in this realm."

It was a good idea. They needed to find her soon. Chad and Ichigo took one path, closer to the forested area of Tatsuki's mind. Orihime and Ishida took another, heading towards what might have been a lake. Orihime and Tatsuki had spent a good amount of time at the lake this summer, though there were occasions Tatsuki had gone alone. Neither had any idea what the forest meant, but Ichigo had a sneaking feeling.

The sobbing got louder and more pained the further Ichigo and Chad walked into the forest. Ashes fell from the branches in large clumps, clouds rising from the scorched earth with each fall and footstep. Her world was so destroyed, charred and dead, the buildings and land left behind. Ichigo ducked under a branch, Zangetsu nearly vibrating in his grip with something akin to excitement.

"This doesn't feel right," Chad rumbled as he followed Ichigo through the coal forest. "This test, it feels like a trap."

"I know," Ichigo nodded. It went unspoken that the Silent God was testing them as well. "Let's just hope she's there."

The forest thinned, leading the duo to a very familiar river bank. The Silent god was actively targeting Ichigo now. Before, monsters had attacked him or Orihime first, in larger numbers than went after Chad and Ishida. This riverbank held some of his worst memories.

And there, sitting by the water, was a woman covered in blood, sobbing as she held herself. Thick hair hung around her form, sticking to her skin and covering what her torn clothing did not. The crimson fluid was pooled around her form, rippling with every sway that Tatsuki's form made.

"Tatsuki!"

Ichigo all but ran down the hill, slowing only when the woman lifted her head to face him. Icy blue eyes were staring out of Tatsuki's face, trails of crimson falling down her cheeks as she glowered at him. With her head lifted and hair shifted, he could see long scratches on her chest, she'd been clawing at her heart. The flesh and skin under her nails hung in ribbons along her hands.

"You left me," the creature spoke in Tatsuki's voice. Worn and ragged from her tears. It was filled with rage and sorrow, betrayal shining through brighter than any other feeling. "You left me, alone, you left!"

Ichigo barely had time to catch the creature coming at him. Her nails had turned to claws, mouth opening impossibly wide as her teeth lengthened and turned to fangs. Still, he did not want to crush her wrists in his hands, did not want to draw his sword on her.

"Tatsuki," Ichigo grunted, leaning away from her as he tried to push her away. The longer he held onto her, the more he could feel it's emotions.

"You left me," she sobbed again, crimson tears falling anew. She was trying for his throat, fingers scratching the delicate skin.

It was Chad who pulled the creature off of him. Clawing and screaming at Ichigo as Chad pulled her off. The woman screamed as she pulled her hair out, flinging it at Ichigo as her nails dug into Chad's arms. Razor sharp, the inky strands cut through his clothes and skin, stinging to the very bone, her nails must have done the same, for Chad released her to activate his own power.

"I think she's angry at you," Chad finally spoke as Ichigo dodged the wailing woman.

"I picked up on that," Ichigo shouted as he was forced to dodge yet another clump of hair. He didn't want to strike her. She was too much like Tatsuki, the sorrow in her voice echoing in his own being.

"Ichigo, if you defeat her sorrow, maybe we can bring Tatsuki out quicker." Chad was trying to deflect the woman from the sidelines, punching the earth and creating ditches for her to stumble over. It was working well enough, but they could feel the dawn coming and they needed to find the others before they were taken back to the real world.

Ichigo flipped Zangetsu's blade to face the demonic woman. He'd been holding back throughout, unable to cut into a form so very like that of Tatsuki's. Even Zangetsu had been hesitant to strike her; something they agreed finally agreed on. The sobbing, screaming, woman had not been so hesitant however, lunging at him despite the blade cutting into her chest.

He lost his breath when the blade went through her, watching as the top of her body fell into the river, crying out as his mother had before. The water was crimson, blooming out from where she'd fallen. The ground as well was coloring. He'd lost another to that river, sent another woman he cared for to a watery death.

"Ichigo."

Chad's voice broke him from his guilt. He pointed at the river, at the top of a head and a pair of icy eyes glaring at them, moving closer as inky hair swelled to the top of the water. It was moving slowly through the water, the body in the grass twitching.

"We should find the others," Ichigo started up the bank. This wasn't something he could destroy. He could hear the weeping woman splashing out of the river as they left, cries growing fainter as they returned to the place they'd left Orihime and Ishida.

They were waiting for Ichigo and Chad, Orihime blushing a curious crimson while Ishida was very focused on cleaning his glasses. Both were covered in blood and muck, various rotting waer plants sticking to Ishida.

"Fall into the lake?" Ichigo asked, glancing back towards the river.

"Something like that," Ishida started to blush. Orihime's face had gone even redder as she focused her gaze onto the ground. "We didn't find our Tatsuki. But, something like her."

"Well what happened?" Ichigo asked.

"I'd really rather not discuss it," Ishida continued cleaning his glasses as his skin matched Orihime's. "What about you?"

"We didn't find her either," Ichigo breathed out. Dawn was very close, pulling at their being as the world around them brightened and began to pull. "Just something like her."

The trip back to the real world was less of a shock to them. Orihime didn't puke this time and the tingle that had been trailing along Ichigo's skin was lessened. The wounds they'd suffered remained. The muck and dried fluids were still on their clothes, less sinister in the light of dawn.

"I see," Yuuko gave a sad smile. She'd been waiting on the roof for them, still garbed in her robes. "I take it you met the girls?"

"If you mean the sorrow, yeah," Ichigo scowled. Why did he still have Zangetsu? It felt solid in his grip, realer than it had before.

"Sorrow?" Ishida asked. "She didn't seem very..." the blushing was back and Orihime had begun to speak about robots.

"The one you called Sorrow is Nassatu, Tatsuki must defeat her before she can return." Yuuko looked over the the red teens, trying not to laugh. "I think they met Habassu."

"Habassu?" Ichigo asked. The sunlight was welcome on his skin, assuring and comforting. He'd never been so upset to leave the darkness before. He wanted to share this feeling with Tatsuki. "What is she?"

Yuuko only smiled once more. "You'll know when you meet her. She'll look for you, call to you, just as Nassatu did." Dr. Ishida walked onto the roof as Yuuko spoke, face grim as he came over to look at their injuries. "Both of them are aspects of Tatsuki. Parts she has trouble accepting. Her sorrow for one. A tomboy is not expected to weep over a man."

Ichigo's hand went to his chest, touching his heart as he remembered the torn look of Nassatu's skin. Zangetsu pulsed in his grip, asking that he speak with them.

"Go clean up, go to school," Yuuko spoke. "You'll have another chance tonight."

Tatsuki's breath shuddered as the grayish being prowled back and forth in front of her. His face was blackened, curling horns emerging from a mane of white hair, and while she'd expected his skin to be as cold and clammy as everything else, it had been alive. Not warm, but not carrying the cold of death. His teeth clacked together as he moved about in front of her, wide mouth reaching from what would have been ear to ear. It crawled about on all fours, sniffing at the air and the ground like an animal. It's head swung over, vertical eyes blinking at her, and started clacking.

"I take it you aren't planning to eat me?" Tatsuki asked, squeezing the blood from her sweatshirt. It wasn't helping much at all. She would have taken it off, but something told her this creature wouldn't see it innocently.

The creature clacked it's teeth in laughter, gurgling something as it walked away from her. Clacker only walked a few feet before glancing back. His head titled and jerked.

Tatsuki rose on shaking legs and followed him through the courtyard he'd dropped her in. Unlike the last safe place, this place held a single tree, decorated with prayers, stone tablets at it's base and clay idols in the branches. Clacker led her past the tree, climbing awkwardly over benches and stones, towards a wide set of doors at the other end of the courtyard. The doors were stained with black and deepest brown. How many people had been struck down as they reached for the handle? Hundreds, thousands of priestesses must have died in this place.

Clacker nudged her at the door with his head, horn scratching Tatsuki's thigh.

"Fuck, I'm going."

Her answer was a laugh.

"I really hate opening doors here."

Tatsuki glanced behind herself as she started opening the door. The creature was watching the other entrances, swaying as his head twitched. She pulled the door open, nearly laughing at what she saw. Her living room. The beige carpet her mother hated so much and the couch neither could bring themselves to get rid of. Even the TV was in there, mounted on the wall as it played Tatsuki's favorite show.

There was a woman in the room as well. Winged and beautiful and terrifying all at once. The woman was garbed in nothing but her hair and a wide, jeweled belt. An elaborate caul was resting atop her head, shifting in color and sparkling in the soft lamplight. She was sitting in her mother's favorite chair, smiling a nearly wicked smirk full of many things.

"Ereskigal."

The woman nodded, beckoning Tatsuki into the mock home. Tatsuki slid the door shut behind her, ignoring the laughter of Clacker, and entered. This place, it felt like home.

"That is because you are home," Eres laughed. "I am granting you one hour of rest. Change, cleanse yourself, eat. I will call you back before the sun rises."

"Why?" Tatsuki couldn't help but ask. "What is that thing in Aunt Tsuki?"

Ereskigal's mouth twitched, nearly losing it's smile as her face shifted ever so slightly from the grinning beauty to a grinning matron.

"A demon. Each of you has one to fight." She spoke so simply, shrugging even. "Of course, you have the strange luck to be Tsuki's reincarnation. So the demon within her, is yours as well." Ereshkigal rose, taller and larger than Tatsuki had assumed her to be. Her wings fell behind her in a feathered cloak of ink and pitch. "Your mother took more than just her sister's diary that day. Tsuki had stowed away part of her very soul, hoping to try my test again."

"I'm not Tsuki."

Ereskigal grinned as she walked past Tatsuki and towards the door.

"No. You're not."

Tatsuki let out a breath as Eres left through the strange door.

She would shower first.

~!~

Wow, second chapter was a long one. Also, because I know I will get questions, I've thrown in a bit of a glossary for you guys to look at.

~!~

Nassatu – Sorrow, to lament – Weeping Tatsuki represents of course, the pain she feels at being left behind and alone during painful times of her life. The gym clothes reflect her first abandonment, Coach Yamata, as Ichigo did not understand what she was trying to tell him at the time. The blood is the second abandonment, when Orihime pretended they had not been attacked by a hollow – Orihime's brother- the night before. The wounds on her chest, the clawmarks on her heart, represent the third incident, when Ichigo actively told her they were no longer connected. She is incredibly aggressive towards Ichigo and Orihime both, and will not hesitate to cut through those who stand in her way.

Habassu – to swell (with happiness or pleasure) – Pleasing Tatsuki represents her need to please those around her, despite the pain she feels; Habassu embodies the pleasure she receives from helping others. Habassu also represents the pleasure and lust she denies allowing herself. She is a passive being, and can sometimes be benevolent to the group, specifically Ichigo. However, she is rarely far from Nasaru and/or Sagasu and tends to ignore any females, occasionally acting out. The blindfold she wears represents the trust she places in those around her, while her bound hands represent her inability to act as she wishes to. She will often giggle, showing that while the is sexual, Tatsuki has not allowed this side of herself to grow. Her giggles also show Tatsuki's exposure to sex at a young age.

Nasaru – protective spirit – Clacker, an interpretation of Ichigo's inner hollow made by Tatsuki's soul. While Tatsuki herself has never seen Ichigo's hollow side, she knows it exists on a spiritual level, and sees it as his more primal self, the more trustworthy side of his being. Nasaru will often pull tatsuki out of a situation if she begins to crack, occasionally calling Sagasu in. The presence of Nasaru is unusual for a priestess of the Silent God, as few priestesses have deep connections with those they fall in love with. His presence is made stronger by the fact that Ichigo does in fact have an inner hollow. Rarely aggressive, Nasaru will more often 'play' with those he encounters.

Sagasu – to punish, to kill, to execute – The Red Man. Tatsuki's interpretation of Ichigo's shinigami form and that of Tensa/Zangetsu. She has only ever seen Ichigo destroy in this form, therefore, she associates this form with killing as well as protection. It is in Sagasu she places the grim duty Ichigo holds as a shinigami. The presence of Sagasu is not unusual for a priestess, though more often than not, they represent the pain she feels, as well as the guilt they feel for falling in love. In most Shizukami, Sagasu will hunt the priestess, rather than destroying those who have hurt her. Very rarely, Sagasu will defend the priestess if she has been hurt by others in the past. He is especially aggressive when encountered.

Ereskigal – The Silent God - The silent god is of Sumerian origin, the eldest known culture to date, She is one of the first three gods, the other two being An of Heaven and Ki of Earth, both male. Discovering the dead had no place to go, she took the underworld for herself, her wings breaking when she descended into her kingdom. After going into the underworld, she found herself unable to enter the light once more, hence the constant dusk within her realm.

Ereskigal is a very dark, very violent deity, often judging her priestesses harshly before granting them any power. She prefers taking priestesses who have fallen in love and known pain, as they are often wiser than those who have locked themselves away from the world.

Ichigo's presence is a rarity for her, only three times before has a man entered her realm to reclaim what they lost. The man before Ichigo failed, falling at the hands of Nassatu. The second man rejected his love upon discovering whom she served and was destroyed by Sagasu. The first, and only successful being was Ereskigal's husband.


	3. The Return

Her shower was too quick. She didn't feel clean enough to go back into the world. She didn't feel ready to face anyone, then again, she wouldn't be facing anyone for a while. Getting dressed was a simple affair, a pair of pants and a sweater. The pants were neither too loose, nor too tight, a pair of white boot-cut jeans with cargo pockets. The sweater was rolled up to her elbows, wide bands of red and gray crossing her chest.

It was while she was drying her hair that she saw the glinting metal on her bed.

A handgun was sitting beside a box of ammunition and a holster. The cold metal had a nearly rosy hue to it, complimenting the carmine leather it would rest within. The ammunition box had an extra clip in it, loaded and ready to go.

Tatsuki picked it up, checking to see if the gun was loaded as well. It was.

"Thank you mother," she whispered, fastening the belt around her waist. The clip went into one of her pockets, as did the ammo. When Yuuko had gone into Shizukami with her simple bow, the Silent God had given her quivers of arrows when she ran out or did particularly well against her shadows. Tsuki had gone in with a sword, as many before her had done, and Ereskigal had gifted her with a whetstone.

Tatsuki was perfectly fine with a gun.

Now she was playing the waiting game. She had fifteen minutes before she went back. She'd found her mother's gift, she'd cleansed her body, eaten something and then puked it back up. All she could do now was wait. Wait and Pray.

~!~

Ichigo did not enjoy sitting at his desk. It wasn't the same without Tatsuki sitting in front of him. He couldn't peer over her shoulder to see her notes or smell her shampoo. He couldn't poke her in the shoulder with his pencil or see the faint line of a bra strap under her shirt. He could barely pay attention to Miss Ochi as she spoke to them, because Tatsuki's head wasn't in the way of the board.

He unclenched his fist, only just realizing that it hurt. Sharp crimson moons stood out against his palm, a reminder of her absence.

In this moment, he could really use a hollow to run and kill.

He could also use a chat with Zangetsu. The sword had followed him from Shizukami into the real world. His zanpaktou, his powers, all of it had followed him back. A gift from the demon goddess Tatsuki and her mother served. Rukia had tried to inspect the sword when they'd returned last night, she'd tried the entire trip home as well, but Ichigo could not let her touch it.

It felt wrong to let her touch a piece of his soul.

"You should go," Ishida remarked, coming to sit beside Ichigo at break. "Her body was moved last night, down to a private room in the coma ward."

"Why?"

"So you could get some sleep," Ishida gave him a half smile. "My father told me when we got back from Shizukami. He's...he's very invested in this. I don't know why."

"At least you're talking now," Ichigo stood from his desk. "Can I grab your notes later?"

"Yeah, I was planning to make copies for Arisawa."

Ichigo was sliding Zangetsu's case from the top of the lockers before anyone else spoke to him. A handy thing, that case. Yuuko had known he'd need it, stopping at her own place as she drove Ichigo and Orihime home. When she'd come out with a guitar case, he'd thought Mrs. Arisawa had lost her mind. But inside, it was made to hold zangetsu; the old man was resting in red velvet instead of rags now.

"Are you going to go see her?" Orihime asked. She'd followed him down during break.

"Yeah, I'm going to catch up on some sleep. Read through Tsuki's journal again. There might be a clue inside of it."

"The way you feel about Tatsuki-chan, it's different than the way you feel about us, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Ichigo nodded. He'd known for a while about Orihime's crush.

"I mean, the way you feel about Rukia, and Nell, and me..."

"Yeah." He adjusted the strap on his shoulder. "I don't have a name for it yet. But it's different."

~!~

It was different.

When she'd blinked, she felt the world around her change. She smelled the difference in the air as the scent of incense was replaced by muggy dust. The sound of the street fell away, leaving only the creak of boards and the sound of a distant wind. There had been nod wind the first time. The air hadn't felt this damp and warm. The landscape of the village itself had shifted. Rot and Lust still stood at the top of a hill, it was still the entrance point of Shizukami, but other houses had moved to their own hills. Steep cliffs and jagged edges had turned her town from something familiar into a new and dangerous land.

Tatsuki stood amidst the rubble of the Rot and Lust, glassy shards of ice moaning at her feet in pain and glee. Bits of flesh were rotting by her feet, fresher than the rest of the world, small creatures feeding on the decay and the blood.

Something had come into this place besides her. And it had run amok.

Tatsuki's hand tightened around her gun as she walked down the ivory path. The white cobbles were hollow under her feet as she walked, wary in her own village.

The path began to incline, a steep cliff on one side, pushing her towards the edge of another as it wound down into the village. The ashes were blowing thick along the ground in a hot fog, turning her jeans a dingy gray as she moved along. Carmine embers winked within the ashes as the smell of smoke hit her with a sudden ferocity.

Tatsuki's steps slowed as her path began to widen and the cliffs melted away, leaving only Yamata's front yard and a burning house. The smoke was thicker, blooming around her waist and glittering with embers as she moved forward towards the place she'd lit ablaze.

Something was moving in the smoke. She could see its shadow as it moved, the smoke itself rising around it as it rushed around her. Long and menacing, the snaking creature in the smoke continued to move towards her, wending back and forth before it rose up from the glittering smoke around them.

A bleary face was staring at her, stretched tight over a skull too big with unblinking, milky eyes. The mouth was open, toothless as it gaped at her like a fish. While the face had been overly tight, the rest of the creature was covered in folds of wrinkled skin. Spidery arms were slinking out of the folds, gooey as they began to grow towards the ground, each lifting arm reaching for her as the others pushed the old man closer towards her.

"What the...I always knew you were a worm old man."

Tatsuki raised her gun and fired, not bothering to hide her smile as she shot one of the arms off. The creature let out a keening bellow as a milky fluid oozed from where it's arm had once been. The sound shuddered to a stop as the creature pulled its arms back within it's flesh, falling limp to the ground into the hot depths of ash; the Ges Zig was burrowing through once more. Thrusting faster and more violent through the cinders than before.

~!~

Ichigo let out a heavy sigh as he settled himself in the chair. The same chair from Tatsuki's old room, complete with the brownish stain from his coffee and the copy of Tsuki's diary. He'd picked up where Yuuko had left off, read no further than Tatsuki had ever read to him and no earlier than the second chapter. The story made him uncomfortable, it made him look into the life of someone else when he had no real right to do so.

"I have fallen into her grace. My time for judgment has come and I am not ready. I will die in here, or I will go mad for the grief I bear witness to."

Ichigo read on, whispering quietly to Tatsuki's sleeping form as he discovered more about her faith in the Silent God. She was to be a priestess when she came back, sending those trapped in the living world and punishing those who might send others. The murderers, the abusers, the rapists would fall by her hand and the dead would go to the Silent God. Tsuki had been snatched away into the land of shadow after her beloved went to battle for the daimyo.

"Had you but stayed, I might never have gone to this wretched land of ash and death. I would have stayed by your side. I would have removed my veil and shown you my truest face."

Ichigo felt sleep pull him under, soft fingers dragging him from the real world to his own inner sanctum. Within, he saw it changed for a second time. The sky scrapers were cracked around him. Cracked, but still whole. The sky was no longer a bright and glorious blue, but overcast and threatening rain. He didn't have to turn to know both Hollow and Zangetsu were standing behind him.

~!~

Tatsuki jammed the clip into the gun, whirling as she tried keeping the Ges Zig in her sights. He was almost gone, one last limb and he would be gone forever, but the heat and the cloying smell of flesh was slowing her down. The milky fluid burned her skin through her clothes, about two arms ago he'd started spraying her with the acid. The last one had been too quick for her to dodge, catching her left side before he fell to the smoke.

Ges Zig was getting closer, nearly on top of her when he popped up once more. The face had stretched to the point of splitting, the final grabbing hand coming from what had been his mouth, gnarled fingers bloody and burnt as they scrambled for her.

"Fuck off!" Tatsuki shouted, firing at the limb. Again and again, until the creature fell to the ground in a shuddering mass.

The smoke began to clear, at least partly, as the fire died out. No longer swelling around her hips, it had returned to a fine layer around her ankles, the cinders dying out to the occasional glint.

Tatsuki glanced around herself, hardly assured when she saw her path glittering white in the smokey dusk. Nothing else was running around the place, and the only way was forward. Tatsuki let out a shaking breath as she recovered from the fight. Shaking the remnants of the acid from her sleeve. The sweater was done for, but she'd expected as much. Somehow her hair had escaped harm, uncut since birth, as was the way of the priestess.

Ges Zig gave a death rattle before it deflated, folds hissing as they dissolved into a puddle and sank into the ground. Within the puddle, revealing itself more and more as the flesh melted away, a small, wooden box sat waiting for her.

Old and surprisingly unburnt, Tatsuki knelt and popped the wood open. A prize for sending the beast back to hell. A new box of ammo, blessed by God and ready to be loaded up, caught her eye first. The crimson and white cardboard was almost too bright for the desolate world around her. As she was loading her second clip, Tatsuki saw the next two items. A brass key, marked with a symbol Tatsuki had seen before. Most recently she'd seen it on the manor door, Esgal, the mark of the underworld. She'd seen it on Tsuki's Diary and on her mother's bow and tools.

Beneath the key, at the very bottom of the box, a silver earing was peaking up at her. Glinting innocent and small within the carmine fabric, it shone with the light of the Silent God. A slight hum sounded when Tatsuki picked the silver, the sound of the telephone when no one was talking. It fell silent when she set it down. Tatsuki picked it back up, pulling one of her earrings out and replacing it with the silver. The low hum of a silent phone continued to echo through.

Her bounty claimed, Tatsuki stood from the ground and started back down her white path.

~!~

Ichigo emerged from his inner world pissed off and scowling. He'd fought with his inner hollow and Zangetsu both. The hollow had been furious with him, attacking viciously and mocking Ichigo the whole time. The old man hadn't done much better, in fact he'd been awfully silent, watching, agreeing on some points with the hollow.

Tsuki's diary rest on the blankets, staring at him. Stained white leather bound by crimson silk. A small charm of silver dangled from a ribbon.

He reached instead for Tatsuki's hand.

"Tatsuki...I'm going to find you." he lowered his head, gazing at a bruise on her wrist. "I left you, I never wanted to, but I was trying to keep you safe." He ran his thumb across the strange bruise, noting a pattern within the purple skin. "When I find you, I'm going to tell you...'I'm here. I'll always be here', because I will."

~!~

Tatsuki stumbled over a chunk of Ice baby, confused. The things were easy to take out. A single shot each had them shattered in the smoke, melting into puddles of blood as the floating cinders hit them. There were more cinders in the ash now. More smoke swirling around her ankles.

"No fucking way," Tatsuki breathed, reaching up to touch the earring. Ichigo's voice had caused her stumble.

_I'm going to find you. I'm going to keep you. Always._

It was Ichigo, but it wasn't him. A strange sort of sound had been in his voice, desperate and almost angry with her. It was frightful and thrilling at once, hearing his voice like that. She wanted him to find her. She wanted him to go away too.

Tatsuki continued through the town, winding through gully's and over hills, past the riverbed she'd comforted and confronted Ichigo in front of so many times. Years ago, she'd asked if he could see ghosts too. Asked if the rumors were true in hope of finding someone she could share her own secret with. He'd denied it, still scared of what he was. She should have told him then.

She should have told someone.

The heavy thunk of a stone in water made her start. Sitting beside the riverbank, a woman was throwing stones into the depths. Her dress was torn and stained with all manner of things and what may have been a lovely face was bruised, saline trails trickling over the bloodied cheeks. A Bow was resting on her lap, cord broken, while a short sword rest on the ground in front of her.

"Hello?" Tatsuki asked, moving closer.

The woman looked up, shock on her features.

"You...thou art living?" the woman asked.

"Last time I checked." The marital artist moved closer to the woman. "Tatsuki, Heiress to the Giris Clan."

The girl lifted a shaking hand. "Mary, Heiress to the Ilu. I do not think I shall return to mine home."

Tatsuki could only let out a breath, rising to her feet. Tsuki had met someone as well, sending them from Shizukami back home. They could never return, never take their test again. Instead, they could live out their lives as normal women. Their children would take the test in their place, a simpler test consisting of solitude and darkness.

"I could send you." An heiress could only be sent by another heiress.

"Would you?" Mary gave a sad laugh. "Edmund had returned just as I began mine ritual." She wiped at her tears. "I think, I think I should like that very much."

Tatsuki cocked her gun, confusing the woman on the ground.

"But, thou must take my life," Mary furrowed her brows. "What will that do?"

"It'll be cleaner," Tatsuki promised her.

~!~

Ichigo jerked from his sleep as a gunshot rang out. Looking around the room, he could see nothing out of the ordinary. Zangetsu rest silent in his case, the book was quiet in his hands, and Tatsuki was still laying abed. So what had he heard?

The teen set the book down, rising to look into the hallway and seeing only a nurse, chatting animatedly on her cell phone. She spotted Ichigo, waving before continuing her conversation.

Ichigo sighed as he went back to Tatsuki's side, picking up the book and looking down at the passage he'd left off on. Tsuki was talking about her childhood and the way it manifested itself in her version of Shizukami. The village girls had teased her; most days Tsuki locked herself inside of the Arisawa manor. But those days were dotted with tears and blood as her father tormented her.

Ichigo shifted the book, the cold silver charm hitting the skin of his hand and suddenly the room was filled with Tatsuki's voice. Ichigo tilted the book as he stood, the charm leaving his skin as her voice fell silent. He shifted the book again, experimentally as he did so, watching the bluish silver hit his hand.

He could hear her. He could hear her complaining actually. He had to grin at that. She was annoyed with a wall that didn't exist in _her_ world.

Ichigo sat up at that, glancing between the diary and the door. Tsuki and Tatsuki lived in the same house. If Tatsuki was complaining about Tsuki's version, Ichigo might be able to find some sort of clue within the Arisawa manor.

Tatsuki held her gun tight as she moved into the next part of the village. The man in white had started following her throughout, and now, here in this part of the village, Tatsuki realized why. Tsuki had never completed any part of her task. She'd never even conquered her smaller demons. Shizukami had blended Tatsuki's neighborhood with Kura Village, grand houses side by side with thatched huts, decaying goats and livestock lay next to rusted bicycles and cars. The smoke from her village was still trickling around her feet, rising from her footsteps as it spread throughout the strange little neighborhood. It never spread far, always clinging to Tatsuki and her memories rather than Tsuki's.

Her house stood in the same place it always had. Arisawa manor had existed for hundreds of years, the oldest house in Karakura. This manor looked different than her own however. The west side was missing and the east wing was just being built. One of the towers from the Dream Manor was juting out in the back and the faint glow of crimson lanterns was coming from a wouldn't that should not be.

A rustle sounded from her right. Another coming from her left.

Tatsuki turned, gun ready as she looked at the village. The rustling sounded again, coming from the thatched houses of those who'd served her family. Creatures were rising from the roof, jerking as they did so. Reeds were sticking out from rough sewn kimono as matted hair covered their eyes. Each creature was slightly different, but all of them wore cruel carmine smiles on wooden mouths. At least one wooden woman rose from each house, all of them coming towards her, jeering sounds coming from them as they creaked towards her.

She could feel emotions and memories trickling into her mind. A feeling of isolation, the village girls always teasing her, torturing her. She could remember them coming at her with blades, trying to cut her hair.

"Where are the blades?" Tatsuki asked, looking at the creatures. Sharp sickle-like blades shot out from the creatures hands. "Of course."

Tatsuki fired at the closest one, receiving only a cold thunk sound for her efforts. A gun was no use against a wooden doll, even as rotted and pithy as the ones dancing around her. Jerking about like marionettes, their blades glinted as sharp as their words, tainted silks catching on their bodies. Ducking under a Doll's swing, Tatsuki began to look around for something to use. Some sort of blade or even a flame of some sort. A flame would be very nice. Tatsuki ducked again, hissing as a second Doll's blade grazed her skin and turned her sweater deep red.

Her situation turned south as a blare of white came into her vision. Father had finally caught up with her, hacking through one of the dolls to get to her. The Doll fell to the ground, screaming as her body fell away into the earth as dust. Maybe Tsuki's memories were useful after all.

The martial artist ducked to the side, putting a doll between herself and Katashi. This Doll fell as well, the white man's blade catching in her body before he yanked it out. It was difficult, dodging the dolls and Katashi both, another nick hit her shoulder, and the man in white very nearly sliced her stomach open. By the third and final doll, his blade was stuck, the doll screaming as he tried to wrench it from her body.

Tatsuki darted for the house, noting that it was changing before her eyes, a mixture of her own home, of Tsuki's prison, and the Dream Manor from her first visit. Along along the path, crimson lanterns were flickering to life as the Doll screamed behind her. The white cobblestones were staring up at her, empty sockets watching as she ran to the house of nightmares and safety.

The thunk of Katashi's ax was close behind her, but Tatsuki was faster, and the key was in the door before he was even close to catching her.

Heavy oak was slammed shut, Tatsuki leaning against it as she caught her breath. She could hear the man in white hacking at the door as clacking sounded from above her. Nasaru was clinging to the ceiling, grinning at her as his twisting horns scraped against the wooden ceiling.

"I'm not running," Tatsuki shook her head at him. "I'm making a tactical retreat." He clacked, laughing. "Yes, there is a difference." Tatsuki jumped when part of the door splintered. "Fine, I'm running. But only because I don't feel like dealing Tsuki's issues right now."

The Clacker shimmied down from the ceiling, letting out a bellow as he came to rest upon the floor. Tatsuki's eyes blurred and even Katashi's swings slowed as the sound echoed through the manor. The sound of heavy steel grating upon wood started to echo through the manor, growing louder as Sagasu came into sight. His sword was freshly painted with the crimson of her memories and while he was trying to keep the man in white away, he wasn't being overly careful. Tatsuki had to dodge as the mighty blade stabbed through the door.

"Now we let them cut each other apart," Tatsuki breathed out as her father and Sagasu clashed. Clacker seemed to agree before climbing back up the wall into into the ceiling.

Tatsuki didn't stick around either.

~!~

Ichigo let himself into the Arisawa home with a key he'd grabbed from Tatsuki's personal effects. The nurse had handed her belongings over to him without so much as a question, still chatting away at her phone. The key itself was new, though it had been cast from an antique older than Tatsuki and Ichigo both.

Yuuko was at work, leaving the massive manor empty of nearly all life. Yoruichi had been watching from the window as he jumped the wall around the yard and made his way up to the door. She was watching him now as well, tail flicking as he looked through the library for pictures of the old house. He was also looking for anything about charms.

"How long have you been living here?" Ichigo asked, worrying the charm in his hand as he set the book down. "I mean, do you remember seeing the manor before?"

"I moved in as they finished the East wing," Yoruichi sighed. "Tsuki had just failed her test. Why?"

Ichigo held up the charm. He'd taken it from the diary before coming here, looping it on a piece of string around his neck.

"You know, you shouldn't destroy books," the cat jumped from the desk as she spoke. She was on the couch beside Ichigo as she inspected it. "Why did you take it?"

"I keep hearing her voice whenever I hold it. Not too loud, and I can't always make out the words, but she's been complaining about a wall that doesn't exist."

Ichigo was looking at the walls, the ceiling, anything that might tell him about the house before. A wall that didn't exist...why would she complain about a wall? Was it in her way? Was it blocking off something important? Maybe there was a room she needed to get to.

He could feel Yoruichi's nose on his hand before she darted away towards the bookshelf.

"Come here and lift me up," Yoruichi shouted. "I can't see."

Ichigo did as told, lifting the spirit up to his chest and moving her around when she pawed at the books.

"I don't think you're hearing Tatsuki," Yoruichi explained as she pawed at one of the larger books in particular. Ichigo set her down, pulling the tome from the shelf. "At least, not entirely. That charm once belonged to Yuuko's sister, Tsuki. Of course, back then they were a set, a pair of earrings."

Ichigo opened the book, blinking when he saw the layout for Arisawa manor's third floor. Every page detailed a different floor, including back buildings and cellars and rooms he'd never even known about before. He flipped to the newest page, eyes scanning first for Tatsuki's room and then for the library he sat in.

"Tatsuki has the other one I'm guessing," Ichigo flipped back to study the plans from Tsuki's era, when the East wing was just being built. There, right by the library he sat in, was a small closet, walled off. The difference being the wall was only recently built. Ichigo sat up, looking at the hidden closet and wondering if Yuuko would get upset at him for bashing her wall in.

"Ichigo..."

He was standing, unclipping the case that held Zangetsu before pausing and heading to the fireplace instead. Zangetsu might blow the whole wall down with as impatient as they were. The old man, his hollow, himself, no doubt Tensa was just as upset right now.

"Ichigo what are you doing?" Yoruichi had her eyes narrowed as he lifted the poker from the fireplace. "Don't-"

Her shouts went unheard as he bashed the wall the the iron. The plaster crumbled at his feet as the hidden alcove opened up, tiny glimmers of light reflecting from within. Ichigo continued to tear at the wall until he could step through, making a mental note to clean up before Yuuko got home. The closet was slightly larger than what one would imagine a closet to be. Truly, it was a small room, housing an alter within. A broken mirror was arranged on the wall, black glass glimmering at him as it's edges shone with a blue light. Stepping over the drywall, Ichigo moved into the room and began his search.

"I've never seen this room," Yoruichi spoke behind him. "What is that? Under the offerings tray?"

A thick, crimson bound notebook was peeking out from the edge of a copper plate.

"It looks like Tsuki's diary," Ichigo picked it up. "But her's is blue..."

"Miss Yuuko's perhaps?" Yoruichi asked, hopping up to Ichigo's shoulder.

"No," Ichigo shook his head. "I don't think so. It's talking about rebuilding the shrine into a manor."

"Yuuko never lived on a shrine," Yoruichi's brows furrowed. "She was just born when the family decided to build the fourth floor."

Ichigo almost argued with her. One couldn't just add floors on top of a building. But this family, the Arisawa family was not a normal family. They didn't follow the rules. Tatsuki never followed rules.

"Who was the priestess before Yuuko?" Ichigo asked instead.

"Tsubaki."

Ichigo turned to see Mrs. Arisawa looking at her floor with pursed lips. Her hair was falling from it's bun while pale skin reminded him of Shizukami and it's trials. Her briefcase was still in her hand and a cigarette was resting between her lips. Unlit, he could see Yuuko's lighter in her hand, glinting like the mirror on the wall.

"I'll clean it up." Ichigo couldn't help but blurt it out.

"I know," Yuuko let out a breath, stepping through the mess and into the shrine room. "My aunt Tsubaki was the priestess before me." She looked at the book in his hands, protesting when he offered it to her. "My mother walled this place up when Tsubaki died."

Yuuko's hand extended, fingertips brushing against the mirror. Sharp blue sparks erupted from the place her skin touched it., angry, scolding almost. "A priestess records her journey into an obsidian mirror once she completes it. It used to be that we would lock a sleeping priestess in this room until they'd finished their journey."

"And if they died on the journey? Inside of Shizukami?" Ichigo asked, looking down at the floor. There was a stain in the wood, blackish and sinister. Layers upon layers of lies and sorrow and soot.

"Another skeleton in the closet," Yuuko smiled, bitter. "I can tell you're going to spend the day exploring...try not destroy any more of my walls."

Ichigo nodded as Yuuko walked out of the Journey Room, Yoruichi following her. He turned back to the alter, searching for any sort of charm like his own. Instead, he found himself looking at the mirror. There were mirrors like it all around the manor. Whole as they hung over doors and above windows, glinting happily. Why was this one broken? The man looked around the room once more before stepping back into the library to read Tsubaki's journal.

_I've been naughty. I've been sending the other girls home, back to their sad lives in dirt. If you send someone against their will, you take their gift. I've been naughty. _

Tatsuki paced through the manor, trying doors and windows, but most, if not all, were locked. The open doors were filled with sickness. The smoke that had pooled around her ankles had filtered across the floor, swirling over the thick, dark, red on the floor. Wet footsteps echoed as she moved, ever wary of the manor she was wandering throughout. The ice babies had been through recently, always moving in herds of four or five, their giggles would start to bounce off of the walls as she went.

They reminded her of someone. She just couldn't put her finger on it.

Her hands began to shake as she moved closer to a memory room.

The writhing shape of a man was trapped beneath the leathery floor, moaning as it moved over something smaller, something making muffled screams. Tatsuki's skin drew tight, crawling along her back as she forced herself to enter the room. She could fight this thing. She would survive what had happened to her beyond flames and nightmares.

The red swordsman, Sagasu had been cutting them up before. Up out of the floor and into tiny pieces. Guns were so much cleaner. Tatsuki fired her handgun at the thing, smiling with satisfaction as blood poured from the leathery skin. It took almost three shots to kill the leather skin, but the feeling of seeing it die, watching her tormenter fall, it was worth three bullets.

The smoke along the floor began to lose it's cinders.

~!~

Ichigo let out a sigh as he climbed the stairs to Tatsuki's room. Tsubaki's journal had been a waste of time. Full of riddles and admitted murder. Probably why the mirror had been broken.

Her bedroom door was open. Ichigo wasn't the only person to have come to the Arisawa manor today. Inoue was sitting on the bed, leafing through a photo-album. Her eyes were red rimmed, bright hair falling around her shoulders lifelessly. She was still in her uniform, her school bag leaning against the desk. She must have left for the house when he left for the hospital.

"We're in here a lot," she spoke, adjusting her legs. "You and me. Chad is in here too."

Ichigo didn't speak, instead setting Tsubaki's journal on the nightstand and looking around the room. It was bigger than his room, although everything in this house was bigger than it needed to be. Ichigo focused on inspecting the walls and floorboards rather than the objects within. If he had looked at the objects, he might have seen a bracelet on her dressing table. His White Day gift to her from the sixth grade.

Ichigo was looking for more interesting things. The older floor plans had always listed Tatsuki's bedroom as the preparation room. It wasn't until recently it was called the First bedroom.

Something creaked much louder than the other boards he walked across.

"Ichigo?" the teen on the bed was watching as he pulled the edge of the rug back. "Should we be destroying Yuuko-san's house like this?"

"It's not destroying," Ichigo grunted as his fingers caught the edge of the board. "It's investigating. Plus I already kind of bashed a hole in the library wall." 

The board wasn't nailed down like the others. Lifting it was easy and Inoue was just as curious as he was to see what was hidden away inside. News clippings nearly filled the space, the topmost image reporting a massive fire that had taken a whole family. The Yamata family. Parts of each article had been circled, in particular the parts about how the fire started. No one paper agreed with the other. Only one suggested arson; the clipping was worn, words and sentences blurred from fingertips.

The lighter was a bit of a clue as to who the arsonist might have been.

"Why would she," Orihime took a pause, holding back the accusation. "Why would she keep things like this?"

"You weren't there." Ichigo set the clippings aside, looking through everything else in the cubby. There were generations of things inside. Old fashioned tins, stone mazes, toys and dolls. But no earring like the one around Ichigo's neck.

"Yamata was our coach back in middle school. He, I always got a bad vibe from him, but Tatsuki had to stay behind on certain days. She'd get in trouble for something small and..." Ichigo shook his head. "I don't know what happened. But it was bad enough she'd be happy he died."

"Why wouldn't she tell me?" Orihime asked.

"She wanted to be strong."

Ichigo rubbed a hand across his face as he continued studying the house plans. Most of the rooms hadn't changed since the Heian Era. Tsuki's era apparently. The kimono room was still connected to Tatsuki's room and the armory was still on the second floor. He kind of wanted to inspect that room. He kind of wanted to inspect a few of them. Whenever he'd look at a particular room or other, he'd feel her heartbeat through the charm in his hand. He'd hear her sigh sometimes too.

"Yuuko-san," Ichigo turned to face the business woman. She was sitting at her desk, reviewing some of her own papers. Orihime had elected to remain in Tatsuki's room, fingers running over memories as guilt assaulted her. It had been too heavy for Ichigo. "Can I take this?"

"Hm? The map?" Yuuko waved him over, taking the tome from his hands and asking for his phone.

"I could have taken a picture," Ichigo grumbled.

"It's more than a picture," Yuuko swatted him. Her fingertips began to glow a faint blue as she recorded the image, symbols and sigils flashing across his screen in a rapid pattern. "There's an app for that you know."

Ichigo looked down at his phone. A strange symbol had taken up residence on his screen, shifting from indigo to red, but looking just like any other app on his phone.

"Once you get to Shizukami, you should be able to take a picture and the spell will translate it into a map. I already did it to Ishida's phone." Yuuko shut the book carefully, setting it aside as she returned to her work. "You can test it out here if you'd like."

~!~

Her father had made it past the crimson swordsman. He'd chased her through the manor, axe swinging as he followed her around through halls and corridors. Clacker had stepped in once, but the feeling she got said she needed to fend him off herself soon. The smoke was still trailing around her ankles, sometimes pouring in from the windows, sometimes rising from the cracks in the floor. The more she explored this house, the more she moved through it, fleeing from her pursuers or destroying her demons, the more it turned into her house. The Arisawa manor was sprawling around her, doors appearing where there had been none before, rooms larger than they had been or smaller than they would be.

It was unsettling and assuring all at once, seeing her world blend with Tsuki's.

Tatsuki moved through the blood stained corridor she'd been chased into. The charred outlines of bodies decorated the stained walls like a mural, blending into the dust and the muddy floor she walked across. Soot and blood had mixed together on the top floor of their home. The higher she went, the less she saw the crimson liquid spilling across the house. The smoke was thicker up here though, the occasional twisting wyrm slithering across the floor until Tatsuki crushed it beneath her heel.

There were ice babies near, she could her the tinkling of their glass feet on the floor and their sharp laughter up ahead. She could hear them slicing through the air with ribbons, items crashing as they knocked them off of shelves, giggling gleefully with each item they destroyed. Tatsuki checked her ammunition. Her gun was loaded, and while she was running a bit low, she knew she would find more ammunition within the room they occupied. She always found more.

They were in the living room, two fighting over the chandelier as three danced about, hitting pictures and kicking vases off of tables. Each item they broke meant something to her, each room had an important event within.

She took two out with one shot, smirking as their icy shrieks resounded and the cracking of their bodies echoed. The two on the chandelier would wait, the ones a bit further away were turning their ribbons onto her, glinting with a razors edge. She was too slow for one of them, hissing as the ribbon sliced her cheek and part of her ear. Only when the babes on the floor fell into a pile of glass did the ones up above jump down, screeching at her as they danced angrily on tippy toes.

She had no time for whiny little brats.

The final creature fell apart, a box of ammunition tumbling from it's frozen chest cavity as smoke rose from the barrel of her gun. When she kicked through the glass, she could see other things had fallen from them as well. Pain killers from one, a jar of herbal medicine from another. And one had dropped a small stone.

A shard of obsidian was turned over in her fingers, edges flickering with crimson light. It would become a part of her mirror, a part of her journey. Tatsuki slipped the sharp stone into her pocket, along with the rest of the things she'd collected, before continuing, reloading her gun as she moved through her living room towards a set of stairs.

She hadn't seen those stairs before. They didn't exist in her version of the Arisawa manor. In her world, they'd been removed, replaced with a small closet shrine dedicated to the Silent God. Tatsuki used to pray for her brother there, the unknown man she'd always wondered about.

The stairs were almost calling to her.

She kept her gun ready as she climbed them, the smoke was falling down the soggy wood in thick streams, the embers returning ever so faintly. In fact, she could hear something moving at the top of the stairs. Something small was tinkling up there, no, not tinkling, tinking. Like a small metal instrument was being struck against stone. The higher up the stairs she went, the more Tatsuki realized that these stairs were leading her directly to the third floor. The floor her room was on, though on the other side of the house. A part that was demolished in favor of building a rooftop garden.

Tatsuki pursed her lips as she reached the top of the stairs. The smoke at her feet was thick and black, but low. The smell of wood smoke and hot iron filled her nose, different from the smell of her own torments. The room she was in had nothing inside of it save trunks and boxes. Someone had left an idol long ago, made from milky white quartz the color of bone.

A path of idols led her down the hallway, twisting and turning as the smoke rose, thicker and blacker than before. The sound of chipping stone was louder as she moved through the hall, flickers of flame seen through broken windows as the smell of sweat and hot steel met her nose. The walls around her were no longer the walls of her home. The walls were made from thick rounded stones, mortar crumbling to the floor and into the smoke around her calves. This hall was not of her home, and the tapestries on the walls were not of her country.

Thick, elaborately woven scenes were stained red and brown, slashing sprays painting the walls and wool alike. Tatsuki had managed to wander into the Shizukami of someone else. Perhaps even the village of the girl she'd sent earlier. That didn't make any sense though. Mary's test should have gone when she did.

~!~

Ichigo rotated his shoulder, stretching the muscles in his back and neck. He'd been exploring the house for a few hours now, the spelled app on his phone working rather well. No matter how much he explored, or how deeply he went into the various books and rooms, he found himself back in Tatsuki's room.

He found himself turning bottles in his hands, wondering when she'd ever worn the perfume or the lotion or anything on her vanity. Finally he saw the gift from white day, set apart from the other bracelets and bangles littering the inside of a drawer left open from the last time she'd sat before it. The surface was bright, polished by fingertips and soft cloth. He'd never seen her wear it, but the accessory was well loved, the latch coming loose from years of wear and removal. He set it back on the vanity, careful not to let it touch anything else.

Ichigo pulled the charm from his shirt, ancient stone warmed by his skin. It still pulsed with Tatsuki's own heartbeat. He could feel her again, her soul was in his plane of existence, even if it was just an echo. He wished he'd had more time before heading to Hueco Mundo. No, they weren't nakama. They were something he couldn't label. Something he was almost afraid to label. Afraid that she wouldn't see it the same way, never mind he couldn't actually figure it out in his own mind. He'd meant to say so much more that No.

He had to figure it out.

He was actually glad the Orihime wasn't in the room. She was downstairs, having tea with Yuuko and Yoroichi. It left him alone. It gave him another chance to really look at the things around him. It gave him another chance to lay upon her bed and take in her scent.

He had to figure it out. He couldn't go to her, rescue her and demand she come back on the grounds of friendship. Not when friendship was such a vague, poor description of what he felt.

He was laying in her bed when footsteps sounded outside of the door. The light of the room had shifted, dimmed as the sun began to fall behind the horizon. Ichigo sat up when the person entered, Orihime was standing in the doorway, sad eyes taking in his disheveled form. She had a plate in her hands, a sandwich and some chips.

"Yuuko-san sent this up," Orihime finally spoke. "She said you haven't eaten since yesterday."

"The night before," Ichigo corrected, accepting the small meal. His appetite had left him after the phone call. His stomach wasn't even growling right now. He still ate. "I guess I fell asleep."

"Yeah. When I came up a few hours ago you were completely gone." Her tone was teasing, but something beneath was resigned. She'd finally accepted what he'd wanted to tell her for a few years now.

He'd been finished for some time when Shizukami began to take them. The paint on the walls began to chip and peel, photographs and posters burning around them, falling to the ground in piles of ash, some leaving sooty marks behind or turning into bloodstained scrolls while others clung to the plaster, dirty and faded. The bed frame began to fall under Ichigo, causing him to stand at the first wobble. The mattress had changed atop the broken frame, a sad futon, spilling and torn. Flickering firelight cast eerie shadows upon the walls as the lamps and candles burned low.

They'd gone from the real world to Shizukami without ever leaving Tatsuki's room.

"The preparation room," Ichigo spoke, looking out the window. Instead of seeing the garden and the city beyond, he could see another building. A part of the house that didn't belong. He could see something through the window too. A dark haired female, firing at something swinging at her.

"Tatsuki!"

It could have been Nassatu, but the figure turned to him, eyes wide before the creature she was fighting slammed into her. Ichigo grabbed Zangetsu from the case, thankful it had come through with them, before trying to break through the window. What had he been thinking, distracting her like that?

It wasn't breaking. Instead it stung him every time he tried to punch through it. Crimson and indigo energy was snapping wildly at him, drawing blood from his skin wherever it touched. His knuckles were raw by the time Orihime spoke.

"Ichigo, there's something coming up from the floor," Orihime nearly shouted.

It took all he had to turn away from Tatsuki and her fight. Now he could see Nassatu. The rage that had burned in her eyes had magnified upon seeing Orihime beside him. The fury, the pain was carried in her being as her inky hair began to spider across the floor. The blood across her chest was fresh, the stain wider and the wound deeper. Tatsuki's rage was echoing through this face stealing demon.

Only when she rose completely from the floor did she speak.

"You left," Nassatu growled, blue ice was staring at him, burning him. "You left me!" She was shouting at both he and Orihime, nails lengthening into claws.

"I came back!" Ichigo found himself shouting back. All of their arguments were shouting matches, his and Tatsuki's. By the end, both would sit down and talk it out or she would beat his ass. Nassatu didn't seem very different; his shout had stunned her for the barest of moments.

The creature seemed torn as she looked between Ichigo and Orihime, trying to figure out which she wanted to attack first, growling and keening before she lunged for Orihime. Her claws were coated in crimson, glinting ever so faintly in the dim candle light. It was a bit of a struggle to catch Nassatu before she reached Orihime. Her skin burned cold wherever he touched, the rage moving through him like a fire.

"You left me!" she screamed, struggling in his hold. She was confused, torn between which person she wanted to kill more.

"I came back," he grunted, fighting against her. A faint noise came from her bloodied lips before she broke away, retreating to the other side of the room to glower at them. His hands were the least of his injuries right now. The cold had blistered the skin on his forearms and his chest where it had been exposed. His palms were red and angry and while it had hurt, he knew what he had to do to beat back her sorrow.

She was choosing between them again, the tears falling in crimson rivers down cold cheeks to drip drop on the floor. Each drop echoed through the room and the increasingly crimson floor.

"Watch out for her hair," Ichigo warned, watching as the she-beast reached up to pull a handful out. It was shining in the firelight, faint lines of blood sticking to the follicles as she pulled it away. Ichigo dodged opposite of Orihime as she flung it towards them, screaming once more.

It was as he dodged to the side that he saw the razor strands shift direction. Ever so slightly, but enough that Orihime had to move a bit faster.

"You left me," Nassatu sobbed as the red trickled down from her scalp. The floor was being coated in a thin layer of smoke, soft and swirling as something unseen slid towards Nassatu, a reddish train slicking across her skin. She scowled at Ichigo as her head lifted, teeth lengthening as she swayed closer.

"We're here now." Orihime had caught on to what was going on. "I'm here and Ichigo is here and we aren't leaving Tatsuki again."

Orihime might have been catching on, but she hadn't entirely, separating Tatsuki from her sorrow. Nassatu was born from Tatsuki, as much a part of her as Zangetsu and his inner hollow were a part of him. The creature screamed, pulling her hair from her scalp as she accused Orihime.

With her attentions so focused on Orihime, Ichigo could see that the hair was still attached. It lost its image when it hit anything solid.

It hadn't hit Orihime, but the rage she'd summoned from Nassatu had Ichigo pulling her off of the redheaded girl, careful not to let the claws of sorrow remove Orihime's throat. She was bucking against him, the cold burning his skin again as she raged and sobbed. Her blood was painting his arms, mixing with his own as she cut into his flesh.

"You left me," she growled. She was getting weaker. Her voice had lost some of it's passion.

"I'm back," He grit out. His grip was slipping, slick and painful. He heard the noise again, softer than a whisper, come from her lips. She broke away from him, nails digging deep into his flesh as she retreated to her corner again. The same place He'd pulled the floor up earlier that day.

Instead of lunging at them, the creature sank back into the floor. The wall finally gave up the door and while the danger had passed for now, the floor was still soaking beneath their feet and the smoke was still as sinister as had been.

Ichigo turned to look out the window. Whatever had been going on was done. Tatsuki was no longer in the room. The room itself no longer existed.

"We should try to find Chad and Uryuu," Orihime spoke as they exited the bedroom. The door sealed up behind them, leaving only a wall. "If we ended up here, it's possible they did too."

"I don't think so," Ichigo shook his head. "We were in Tatsuki's room, so we went to her room. Yesterday we were at the hospital. Choko Hospital was built on an old shrine. Exactly where we landed."

"So Chad and Ishida are in the city somewhere. In the village."

"Yeah, and I'm going to go find Tatsuki. I just..I just saw her." Ichigo hit the last step, sword ready. His charm had been humming during the fight with Nassatu, falling silent when she melted back into the shadows. It was humming again, faint but steady. "Get ready."

They walked further into the library, Ichigo coloring slightly as he saw a woman bound to the floor with what looked to be a hollow standing over her. Sort of. The creatures face was buried between her thighs. Orihime behind him made a soft noise, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him back. Her cheeks burned bright in the shadow and gloom of the manor.

"That's Habassu," Orihime whispered. She peered around the corner, regretting it as a loud moan came from the library room. "Ishida and I saw her last time. By the boat house."

Ichigo had to peek around when he heard the hollow roar. The woman on the ground was barely covered, her gi falling open, exposing soft curves and bruises upon her waist. Her thighs were bruised as well, fingers had left them behind, gripping her and pulling at her. Unlike Nassatu, this woman wore her hair as Tatsuki wore it to school, short and choppy with lips pinked by bites and bruises.

The hollow was looking at him. Amused and clacking its teeth together with glee as it mounted Habassu. Screams echoed through the library as Ichigo hid behind the wall again.

It was his hollow. Sort of. The horns and the mouth curled as his own did, the gray skin flexed over his muscles. A sort of thrill went through him. A sick feeling of satisfaction, knowing that Tatsuki had him in here. It was messing with him, just like his own hollow might, forcing him to listen as he took what belonged to him.

Jealousy rose inside of him like bile. Tatsuki or no, his hollow or a poor copy, seeing anyone do that to her, hearing it would not happen again.

~!~

Tatsuki shot the creature twice more, a bullet for each of it's heads. This was...this was wrong and cruel. Yamata's sons were spawning throughout the house. Waist to waist and hip to hip, they clambered towards her with grubby hands, spiderlike and barbed. They'd been waiting for her in the strange little room, forging the tools of her torture just as they'd done in metal shop years ago. She should have known. Should have remembered but those were the worst memories. Having the Yamata boys escort her from school, bullying her into a corner or dragging her away.

The priestess slid down the wall, fingers clutching her gun as the walls she built began to crack. The metal was cool against her forehead, the length of the barrel parallel to the wall. She wasn't so weak, so cowardly as to take her life, but she needed something sturdy and dependable right now.

Right now.

Ichigo had come into Shizukami, he was in the house even now, looking for something. Sticking his nose where it didn't belong and Orihime had tagged along, blindly loving fool that she was. They'd come for her when they shouldn't have, when they didn't need to at all out of some misplaced duty. Duty. She didn't want them to come out of duty. She shouldn't be anyone's duty or obligation.

Tatsuki stood, full of ire and steel. She was going to beat this test. She was going to beat Tsuki's memory and the demon and Yamata and she would do it all with a smile on her face. Nothing but memories. She was stronger than that.

The dragon jammed a new clip into her gun, jaw set as she began down the stairs. The walls had shifted between seeing Ichigo and going to fight the Yamata boys. Rather than the burnt and bloodied wood they'd once been, something was underneath, screaming silently as the skin of the walls bubbled and boiled them. Hot skin filled her nose while the humidity of the house rose, hot and sticky along her skin. It felt dirty, and wrong in a sort of sensation that Tatsuki didn't like to admit to.

Her earring began to hum as she moved down the hall, a gentler hum than before. The Red Man stood in the center of the room, still as he stared at the door of the living room. Not a muscle moved, not a finger twitched or a sound was uttered. There was only the red man. Him, and one of the stone alters she'd rest upon her first day here. Pictographs shone bright crimson against the black marble. She walked closer, noting that her Red Man had turned his head to watched her, his giant helmet tilting to see her better.

"Do you have to wear that?" Tatsuki asked as she rest upon the alter. She could feel her soul resting, she could feel her muscles ease as the pain faded and her wounds closed tight. "The helmet?"

He didn't answer her, instead shifting his head. His helmet had been welded shut, grime and soot settling in the cracks and grooves. Tatsuki's earring began to hum, the more restored she felt. Her eyes were no longer blurring, but she could feel a chill running along her spine. She felt alert, more awake then she'd been for a while, and the Red Man's hand tightened on his sword. One of two beasties was coming for her, and from the laughter she heard coming down the hallway, she had a good idea about just which one it was.

With each beat of her heart, Memory came closer, swaying as a silhouette in the doorway before stepping foot inside of the room.

"He's protecting you," she grinned, mouth black and cracked. "So sweet, even when he isn't here, he is."

Memory tilted her head as the Red Man lifted his sword in front of him, one armed and growling low within his chest.

"He'll never know you like I do," she whispered, moving closer. "He won't know the darkness in your soul, he's disgusted. I'm not." Memory closed her eyes, savoring something as her hand ran down her chest, resting over her womb. "I'd never let you go. Never let you wander alone, never let you sleep alone."

"Sorry," Tatsuki shook her head. "I'm not into stroppy, homicidal, demon women."

"What a shame." Memory's eyes were glinting crimson. "We could have so much fun."

~!~

Ichigo ignored Orihime's protests as he strode into the library, Zangetsu in his hands as he walked up to the duo on the ground. The clacking hollow was laughing at him. Challenging him and taunting him as the echo of Tatsuki moaned on the ground, mewling piteously. The echo of Ichigo's hollow moved away from her, bits falling back into stained hakama.

"She's not yours," Ichigo lifted his sword. The creature didn't seem interested, instead teasing him, asking him who she belonged to if not him. There were no words, just feelings, emotions and silent questions. "She's mine." His what? His friend? His servant? "Mine."

The Clacker let out a growling laugh, high pitched and wheezy as he scuttled backwards up the wall, squeezing out of a window.

"Uhm, Ichigo," Orihime was standing behind him still. "I think she wants to talk to you."

Nassatu had attacked him, come at him with anger and pain. This one, Habassu was writhing on the ground in front of him, cooing and biting her lips. There was something glinting at him from within the folds of her gi. Bright and jagged, it peeked out further as she arched her back towards him, whimpering.

"Ichigo, I don't think," Orihime didn't have a chance to continue speaking, the creature was growling at her, low and dangerous as it backed up against Ichigo's leg, lips curling around very human teeth as she crouched.

"Habassu," Ichigo spoke, grabbing her attention back. The feral behavior was gone, the attack beneath her skin smoothing away as she moved against him, breasts settling on either side of his leg. Something metal fell from her form, clattering to the floor as she rubbed against him one last time, pouting.

"Thank you." Ichigo picked up the object turning it over in his hands. "Are you the same?"

She only giggled before blending in with a nearby shadow. Orihime's footsteps squelched as she walked over, a mix of creamy white and crimson liquid was spread across the floor. Her face was still bright red when she looked at him, turning her gaze to the item in his hands.

"It's a hair pin," she finally spoke. "What can a hair pin do?"

"I don't know, but it's important." The metal was still warm from where it had rest upon Habassu's skin. The pin was decorated with iron leaves, holly leaves, and heavier than a hair pin aught to be. "Let's go. She should be in that direction."

Ichigo put the iron pin in his pocket, drawing his phone out and snapping a picture of the room. Yuuko's spell came to life, bringing up a map on the screen. The manor was not as it should have been. Walls and rooms and hallways spilled over and across one another as they shouldn't have. Entire sections were missing, the kitchen for one, and other places had decided to pop in for no real reason. Their classroom and Ichigo's bedroom falling into that category. The Arisawa manor was doing as it pleased, gathering bits and pieces from both of their memories to add to Shizukami.

Two dots were blinking on his phone. Orihime's in pink, Ichigo's in crimson. The third was blinking faintly, a dark red violet color. Tatsuki was very far from them, despite being just next door moments ago. He didn't speak, just started walking towards her.

~!~

Tatsuki stood from the alter, gun cocked as she and Red Man watched the demoness come ever closer. She was swaying to a sound unheard, shifting with every beat of Tatsuki's heart. Thump step, thump sway. Sinister black smoke curled out from beneath her feet as she moved, billowing in waves around her as it pushed the soft gray back. Silence was thick in the room, oppressive as Tatsuki raised her gun and fired. Memory was fast, but the bullet managed to graze her arm and bring a look of fury across her face, dark and feral, the woman was coming at her, faster than Tatsuki could hope to run away.

Sagasu stepped in, blocking her from the cold touch of the strange creature. Red pushed the demoness back, giving Tatsuki his own as he moved to protect her once more.

She still wasn't ready to take on the Memory. Not when she had so much left to settle. The demon was watching her over Red Man's shoulder, grinning at her as it licked her lips. Tatsuki fired her gun once more, smirking as the bullet hit Memory's shoulder. A thick fount of brackish liquid emerging, dark and oozing as the memory screamed. Tatsuki could have sworn her Red Man was smiling beneath his helmet. It was just a feeling she got.

He kept the beast at bay once more, fighting truly this time as he gave Tatsuki time to escape. There was a problem though. Memory was blocking the only exit save the attic she'd just come from. The room they were in now had windows, yes, but they had been bricked up, trapping her within this room. The attic was the only place left for her to run.

"Make a path," she whispered, dashing back up to the attic. Sagasu and Memory were roaring at one another, guttural words exchanged as they fought, both voices as familiar as her own. She could still hear them when she reached the attic level, a growing sense of dread following her as she looked through the floor for the window. The window she'd seen Ichigo through less than twenty minutes ago. The idols leading her to the Yamata Twins had gone, the room cold and empty save for the the blood spilled and the terror still clinging to the walls. Something roared, louder than before, from downstairs as Tatsuki grabbed the window sill, yanking it up with all her might before pushing herself through and onto the roof. She slammed it shut behind her, knowing it would do little to deter the wretched creature following her. The creature that wanted to keep her as a pet.

As the frame of the window touched the sill, a flickering of crimson energy shot from between them, sealing the window to the wall. Nothing would follow her up here. She couldn't get back through either. She was currently trapped on top of the roof, gun in one hand as she ran the other through her hair. The roof. Of all the places.

"At least the view is..." Tatsuki trailed off as she took in said view. "Creepy."

Pretty, but creepy. The timber line was black, jagged lines breaking the twilight encompassing this place. Fog or smoke roiled around their trunks, spilling out and trailing towards this house of nightmares. She could see the village to the west, tiny houses and thatched huts combined with larger homes, all rising and falling as the jagged landscape demanded. She could see flickers of white-blue light and explosions of dirt in the village. To her right, and below her, she could see Ichigo and Orihime running along the first floor corridor, sword out and flickering fae all around.

"Who else did they bring?" she wondered, looking down at the village once more.

A little doll was looking up at her with vacant eyes.

Tatsuki jumped back, pointing her gun at it. Dolls had never been something she enjoyed, and now that everything was trying to kill her, she wasn't any fonder of them.

It wasn't moving though. She could get a read off of it and her earring wasn't humming at her. Tatsuki crouched down, poking at the little straw doll with the barrel of her gun. It fell over, eyes still vacant, still innocent. Tatsuki picked it up, standing as she looked at it. The eyes were missing, dark indentations where there should have been beads. A scrap dress covered her form, covered int the sigil of her family gate. Her mouth was missing too, faint lines marking where it should have been.

"I better not regret this," Tatsuki sighed, wiping some of the blood from her arm onto the dolls mouth. It settled in between the lines, shifting around until it was vibrant between the lines. "And somehow, I already do."

The doll didn't do anything else. It just sat there. Smiling sweetly at her.

"I dunno if I can get you in my pocket," Tatsuki grumbled, crouching down once more. She could see her room in front of her, window open and waiting silently.

~!~

Ichigo roared as he looked back at his phone. Tatsuki had moved from her place to the bedroom they'd come through in the time it had taken he and Orihime to move nearly across the house. He could have crushed the damn thing, settling for punching a nearby wall instead, satisfied when the fleshy structure gave under his fist. It was satisfying, hearing something break and feeling the pain in his knuckles.

"Ichigo, you need to stop hurting yourself," Orihime pursed her lips. "It;s nto helping us find Tatsuki and it's not helping your wounds."

The burns he'd received from Sagassu had yet to leave him. The cuts had healed, but the fury, the anger she carried remained, proof of how he'd hurt Tatsuki. The charm around his neck was humming the closer they moved to what he'd assumed to be Tatsuki's location. Loud, and strong, the hum was politely informing him that he may well die within the next room, melding with the sound of chopping and screams just beyond the door. The handle was missing, wood smooth save for two small holes.

"Where's the hair pin?" Orihime asked, bending to get a better look at the wood.

"I don't think you can pick a lock that isn't there," Ichigo spoke, handing the pin over doubtfully.

"No," She shook her head, lining the prongs of the hair pin up with those on the door. "But I can put a handle where there was none."

"I'm glad one of us is thinking straight," Ichigo said, smiling bitterly as he pulled Zangetsu in front of him. "Stand to the side, and then open it up." Orihime nodded, moving closer to the walls she despised so much to get out of his way.

When she pulled the door open, jerking it aside for Ichigo, both were surprised at what they saw. A man in white was hacking at women made from wood, standing over them gleefully as each screamed. His ax was covered in rust and crimson, ashes and slashes covering his form. He paused in his hacking just long enough to look at them, silencing the Doll at his feet one last time before coming towards them. He was moving towards them, focusing on Orihime as he shuffled over, ax raising as the doll fell into the wood of the floor.

"What is that?" Orihime asked, trying to back up. The sound of her bumping into a solid objected made even Ichigo turn. A wall had come up behind them, silent and black, keeping them in here with Tsuki's father.

"A shadow of the past," Ichigo grit his teeth, holding his sword in the defensive position as he moved them out of the doorway. The wall followed them, stopping at the frame itself as it pushed them into the living room.

The ax was raised, glinting in the candlelight as the Arisawa man brought it down with uncanny speed. Orihime managed to dodge, but only barely. While Nassatu had been torn between he two of them, the man in white had no preference for who he destroyed. He merely saw targets, he saw people who'd interrupted his playtime and needed to be punished.

As Orihime darted away tot he other side of the room, the man in white turned on Ichigo. Zangetsu found a genuine struggle keeping the ax at bay. Ichigo was having trouble as well, his hands were burning, little shards of dirt and glass stabbing into his palms as he tried to fight Katashi off. He was strong, stronger than the other beasts Ichigo had fought in his time here.

Orihime sent an attack at Katashi, the little pixie flying through Katashi's chest and back to Orihime.

Tsubaki was dripping with old blood, flicking it off him before deciding it might be better to burn it off.

"I don't think I'll be able to do much," the pixie admitted. "He was healing up even as I went through."

Orihime pursed her lips, wondering how she was supposed to help defeat this creature. Ichigo was swinging at him, sword cutting through flesh that healed too quickly. If only they could separate his body, they might be able to get away, slow him down enough to figure something out.

"Shiten Koshun!" The pyramid shaped shield appeared in the direct center of Arisawa Katashi, cutting him in half before a beam shot through each of his arms, pushing the two halves apart. One went to each side of the room, the blood on the floor rising around their ankles as each half fell to the floor. Ichigo pushed himself up with Zangetsu, watching with some disbelief as Katashi continued to make gutteral, gurgling moans and growls.

"The door is back," Ichigo pointed out.

"There's something over there," Orihime shook her head, sloshing through the liquid pooling around their ankles. She could almost taste it on the back of her tongue, coppery and rotting. Set eye level upon a shelf, a small glass bead had been twinkling at her since they entered the room.

"Hurry up, he's moving."

Ichigo kept his sword raised, watching as the two halves slid slowly across the floor, slower than Nassatu had, clumsier and less coordinated. Then again, Katashi wasn't one of Tatsuki's demons, just some monster that refused to die. Orihime waded back to him, clutching something to her hand as her calves were painted by the flood.

"Lets go, the stairs are right there," Ichigo pushed her towards them.

~!~!~!~

I Have No Life But This

I have no life but this, To lead it here; Nor any death, but lest Dispelled from there; Nor tie to earths to come, Nor action new, Except through this extent, The Realm of You!

Emily Dickinson

To clarify, Tatsuki is spending 23 hours in Shizukami every trip. She is granted a single hour before dawn, the last hour Ereskigal can dictate. Before the sun rises and Ereskigal's power wanes completely, she draws Tatsuki back into Shizukami.

Ges Zig – Old Babylonian – To have an erection – The Ges Zig is representative of Old Man Yamata, Coach Yamata's father. While he never touched Tatsuki, he was often watching, sometimes suggesting things to Tatsuki or his son and grandson during their actions.

The Yamata twins were left out for a reason, because Tatsuki could never see them coming, and because she's blocked them out so well, I wanted to do the same. I wanted to give the allusion of an unseen threat, something you knew was there, coming for you, but you could never look at.

Fun fact, the working title for this Fic was Abandonment Issues.


	4. Unforgiving

Yuuko slid the cold iron from the door, smiling despite the desolate location and the cold wind at her back. As the key fell into her pocket, she could feel the weight of the upcoming ritual fall from her shoulders. From her shoulders and onto her heart. This part, this ritual had not failed in centuries, it could not fail.

Shizukami however, that was far more risky.

"You still intend to continue?"

Yuuko turned to her partner, her amusement barely hidden away. The good doctor was nothing as his father had been, fearful, unwilling to carry out what must needs be done. He'd even sent his own son into hell to avoid his duty.

"A precaution," Yuuko hummed, patting him on the cheek. One that has kept us very safe for many years. "Besides, it is nearly ten years in preparation, it would be wasteful to throw it away now."

"Throw it away?" he shouted. "Throw...you cannot speak of something so valuable as..."

"Doctor, I do know the value." Yuuko smiled grimly as she passed him. The dappled sunshine fell upon the path leading down the mountain, away from the heavy oaken door and the secret it held within. "Believe me, I have known the value far longer than you, I shall continue to know it long after you have gone as well."

"Unless she succeeds."

Yuuko paused, adjusting her coat as she considered Dr. Ishida's words. If Tatsuki completed the ceremony, her duties would be finished.

"Success of one ceremony does nto warrant the avoidance of another." Yuuko stared the young doctor down. Like his son, he was not easily moved. "I'd prepare for the worst if I were you. Oft times, it takes a priestess far longer than seven days."

~!~

So, my laptop is in the shop, I meant to post this sometimes after chapter four. Obviously not happening. But! I do have chapter four nearly completed, once my laptop gets out of the shop, it will go undergo some fine tuning, intense proofreading and then it will be served to you ^_^


	5. The Discovery

"_Forget me Not, Forget me Not!"_

_The maiden once did say,_

_when to some far-off battlefield_

_her lover sped away_

_Christina Rosetti _

Tatsuki made her way through the window of her bedroom, the doll at her waist smiling silently as she dropped into the room. It was silent and cold, the smoke nothing more than a memory, pooling in from under the door and the window sill, dissipating as it entered. Her room was the oldest in the house, hundreds of priestesses had rest within, the blackness of their dreams scorched the walls and the floor, the dying crimson of love spread across the floor, peeling like paint and welling in small puddles. Strands of black silk spread out from a place on the floor, a place where a board had been torn up, revealing the darkest secrets of each Arisawa woman.

He knew.

Tatsuki moved closer to the reliquary, kneeling down to see the contents. It was out of order, contents shifted and some missing while others had popped up, remnants of her other life. No, not her life, Tsuki's life. There was a difference.

Tatsuki picked one of the items up, turning the comb over in her grasp. It was a gift from Kenichi, before he'd left to fight in the war. It was a promise that he'd come back and that was one of the differences. Tsuki had been brave enough to tell them when they were children. He'd rescued her from the bullies and he had been the one to teach her how to fight.

She stood, tossing the comb back in with the other items. The doll had stayed on the floor, slipping from her belt without so much as a feeling or a sound. It was almost pouting at her.

"You're certainly welcome to stay," Tatsuki whispered softly, kneeling back down beside the doll. "I don't know that you'll be safe. I don't know why I'm talking to a doll either."

The doll didn't seem to mind, it's pout turning into a faint smile. Gently, Tatsuki moved her to sit in with the clippings and comb. She double checked her ammo, frowning at the number of bullets inside of her magazine. She had one full, and the one in her handgun carried only six. 20 bullets. Her knife had broken earlier, the steel snapping as she drove the blade into the Yamata Twins' shared heart. She could still feel their breath on her neck, and only by looking around was she convinced they were no longer inside of the manor. She glanced back at the doll, only barely surprised to see it now resting under a clipping.

Her bedroom door was sealed, little more than a decoration in the wall. She would need to go through the kimono room. She hated that room. Each ancient silk reminded her of the sorrow her family had gone through. The Kunieda family had been the unknowing historians of the Arisawa family for years, delivering a new kimono the day after any great event in the family. There were times she could feel the anguish and rage coming from each garment. Only a few of them contained any amount of happiness at all.

Tatsuki held her gun in one hand, glancing around her room once more before she started to slide the door of the kimono room open. The smoke followed her inside, building up by the door just as the blood had swollen up from between the tatami. She hated the kimono room.

The rows and rows of kimono it usually stored had been reduced to only a few, strangely clean despite to corruption of the room itself. Blooms of crimson were spreading dry across the floor, as rich and wide as the blossoms on the kimono around her, as the thick black fumes began to cling to the walls, fading into the rice paper and ash in dark whorls.

"I can't steal from you."

Tatsuki turned swiftly, taking a wide step back as she came face to face with a girl younger than her. Not much younger, fifteen maybe, shorter, with delicate bones and a single crimson camilla blossom tucked behind her ear.

"Aunt Tsubaki."

"You know me!" the young woman was gleeful, clapping her hands in delight before taking Tatsuki's into her own. The young woman, or perhaps ancient, drug Tatsuki to sit down in the middle of the room. The grime and grit retreated with every step Tsubaki took, the air became sweeter and cleaner, the malignancy of Memory retreating as the memory of Yamata's fingertips left as though burnt.

"Oh how delightful. I haven't spoken to anyone in ages."

"I'm a bit confused right now," Tatsuki shook her head. "I thought you were sent away."

"I was," Tsubaki smiled, inspecting Tatsuki's clothes. "Things _have_ changed..."

"I mean, sent to the other side." Having her murderess great aunt tug the neck of her sweater open was a bit disconcerting. Invasive, yet innocent as the tugged on the waistband of Tatsuki's jeans. There was no way to pull out of her reach either.

"Of course I wasn't...who's been teaching you?" She released Tatsuki clothing and fixed her with a look.

"My mother, Yuuko."

"Yuu...Yuuko? My niece?" The dark priestess looked to be greatly confused and rather indignant. "How long has Tsuki been dead? I've been trapped in this room." She didn't imply that Tatsuki was Tsuki at all, making her glad.

"Since the Heian period, over 800 years before me." Tsubaki only blinked at her, mouth opening slightly before closing once more. "What's wrong with my mother?"

"Nothing," Tsubaki shook her head. "She's done quite well if she managed to keep the gate closed so long without the gift." She glanced up when Tatsuki didn't say anything, smiling faintly. "Then again, if she's been doing what I think she is..."

"Tell me what Taking is." Tatsuki loved her mother, she carried her being inside of her own form and Yuuko had saved her many times. "That's why you were sent isn't it? You were taking something from others."

Tsubaki smiled, naughty and slightly mad.

~!~

Ishida panted for breath as he and Chad rest against one of the many building in this twisted realm. They'd been at the school, wondering when Ichigo and Orihime were going to join them until it was obvious they'd gone elsewhere. Until it was obvious that Shizukami had taken them wherever they'd been. Seeing the school fall apart so fully around them, swirling and cracking under their feet. It was like watching time speed forward and back all in one. Watching as the forest pierced the tile floor, skeletal wooden hands crying out for a sun no longer present. Parts of the school stayed behind, the classroom retained it's desks, most fallen, rotting and hardly recognizable.

It was Rukia's desk that had given them problems. Covered in ice, crystalline and pure, the top had opened up, tiny crystal hands coming from within, followed by arms and a torso. Rukia's desk was the spawning point of the glass babies. Over and again until the two of them were surrounded by the twisted ribbon slashers. Chad had managed to destroy the desk during a lull in the re-spawning, five strikes had broken through the ice itself, another three had been needed to destroy the desk. Even then, the ice tried to claim another place. What few babies remained had pulled themselves together, the Ice sliding across the ground to make them better, stronger. It was nearly so tall as Zaraki, the ribbons had widened, a spray of razor edged silk spraying out with each attack. Its hands were larger, clawlike as it swung at them in wide, clumsy arcs.

It had come to a point where they were forced to run as the Ice Heart chased them through the town.

Ishida didn't need a certification to know what the glass infants represented; Tatsuki had never overly liked Rukia. He'd seen it in her body language in the real world. Seen the way Tatsuki's breathing changed and the way her body grew tense when Rukia took over a conversation. In the way her hands fell just short of a fist and her teeth didn't quite clench. The desk in the wood had only confirmed his thoughts. He had a faint idea of why as well. Rukia had after all, replaced Tatsuki as confidant and protector. She'd taken a place that had been reserved for Tatsuki and stolen away nearly everyone the priestess had valued.

Except perhaps Chad.

The fighter was running beside him once more as the Ice Heart stumbled into a building. She was chasing them towards the north-eastern end of Shizukami, if you could consider the creature a she.

"I don't suppose you have an idea on how to beat this thing," Ishida grunted as he and Chad jumped into one of the many ravine's winding throughout the nightmare world.

It was deeper than the last one they'd been chased into, the air hanging heavy and cold around them, each breath clouding about them in thick, cold swirls. Still the Ice Heart chased them, slower now than it had been as it clambered and cracked through the crevice. The cobbled skulls were biting at the giant, nicking away at the glassy legs until it chased them on her knees, and then pulled herself towards them with nubby hands. The ribbons were bloody tatters as she screamed after them.

"Tatsuki may have mentioned fire once or twice," Chad turned behind a wall with Ishida.

Neither of them had fire, but they were closing in on a very smokey area, they could feel heat coming towards them as they ran. Bright cinders were flickering to life as they waded through the thick smoke along their knees. Ice heart was slowing, though she was far more aggressive.

~!~

"I was sealed in here when someone broke my mirror," Tsubaki leaned back on her hands. "It's not uncommon to hunt one another in this world my dear. In fact, it's all part of a game they never told us about."

"So, when aunt Tsuki went in..."

"It's because I was stuck here." Tsubaki pulled something from the folds of her kimono. The silk was still pristine after so many years within the realm. Too clean, too perfect, just like this room was too orderly. "You must guard your mirror very carefully. It is the only way you can travel back and forth."

Tatsuki looked down at the object on the table. It was a mirror. Black obsidian had been engraved with snakes and camilla blossoms. She'd seen many of these around her house in the real world, dim and dead, lacking the lustre within Tatsuki's own shard. Tsubaki's mirror was somewhere in between. Spider fine cracks traveled across it's surface. No, behind the surface. Behind the surface, she could see a distorted version of her front room, each cracked shard depicting a different time; night, day, past, present. Clean and dirty, decrepit and new.

"Once broken, we cannot travel," Tsubaki reached into her kimono once more. "If we can not travel, we can not perform our duties to the goddess."

The priestess set a shard of obsidian down on the table.

"I have been stuck here, while your mother performs the hidden ritual," Tsubaki looked pained, disgusted even. "The gate must be protected by one who carries the gift. I can not leave, but I can help to forge your mirror."

Tatsuki's hand moved to her pocket where one of her shards rest. It was warm to the touch, warmer than it aught to have been from mere contact with her skin. Tsubaki had told her more in but a few moments than her mother had her whole life. She would have to keep coming back here once she was done, that thought hit her strongest. She would never be free of Shizukami.

"Tell me more." Tatsuki set the shard of obsidian on the table and slid it over to Tsubaki.

~!~

Orihime followed Ichigo down the hall, her fae twirling around her now, prepared to attack or defend against the many shadows within this nightmare manor. They'd passed through a room earlier, moaning men trapped beneath the floor, peeking up, rising and falling and leering at Orihime as their faces came up underfoot. They were unnerving, making her feel dirty and insecure in her very skin. She rather enjoyed kicking them, though perhaps not as much as Ichigo seemed to like to stab them. He'd split them open though the leathery floor, a well of pinkish gray matter and crimson rising with each death. Milky swirls would rise as well, slick and seeping back into the mouths and eyes of the floor.

A sharp, chiseling tink sounded from above them, followed by another, sharp and predatory. Orihime looked up, using her scream to propel herself backwards and out from beneath the falling creature. Ichigo nearly fell beneath the fur covered creature, rolling aside as one of it's too large hands reached for him.

Two torso's were attached to one another at the waist, bit's in their mouths and blindoflds of rotting skin stretched across their eyes. Each half bore a whole where a heart should have been, the mark of a hollow, a creature ruled by instinct. Instinct dictated it target a female. Crabwalking towards her, the creature extended one of it's two tongues, charred and covered in black scabs, heat and fire erupting from its throat as it cried out in fury at her retreat. It was a great, naked figure, echoed of before, returning after Tatsuki's gun caused it to fall. Returning with lust; for blood or flesh.

Orihime's fae was useless. The roar rendering each of the fae the fall to the floor, stunned or unconcious, impotent as the auburn haired teen was left defenseless. The roar had slowed her as well, stuttering breath escaping her lungs as she fought gravity.

The mouth facing Ichigo made a low moaning sound, almost lulling as thick honey colored fluid dripped out.

"I've never been one for sweet words," Ichigo tightened his grip on Zangetsu, the ring of steel anchoring him in reality. The sweet head went rolling, anguished roar shaking the room itself until Orihime fell to her knees. The heat and fury turned to him, raging flame spurting out.

It blistered his skin, the gashes and cuts of Nassatu bubbling with crimson cold as the flames crawled up the walls. The ice spread under his skin, further and deeper as he pushed his way towards the beast, Zangetsu shielding him as much as he could. It was as the face inhald, blackend tongue squirming, that Ichigo rushed forward to strike. He was not prepared for it to flip up, standing on it's hands as the rear appendages reached for him. The fire spread across the floor once more, Orihime shaking in relative safety behind and beneath the twin creature.

The left hand flew towards him, grubby fingers reaching on spiderlike arms, slick liquid on the tips of each finger. Ichigo jumped, forced to duck as the right hand swung around. The liquid mad the hands stick to the walls and floor, dying flames singing the skin, the stench of body and sweat filling the room.

The head inhaled again, time enough for Ichigo to attack. He wasn't close enough to the head; an arm would have to do.

Bursts of acid orange and urine yellow erupted towards the ceiling as the creature screamed in pain. Blazing heat surrounded them, falling embers merciless in who and what they struck.

"Orihime!"

She was forcing herself to move, shaking as she gathered up her tiny friends. She was moving; better than it had been.

The elft hand swung at him again, fisted and slamming into the floor where Ichigo had stood. This creature, it was a part of Tatsuki's past. A past that refused to die. A past he hadn't seen, but he knew he should have. He should have done something then; he ducked as the fist swung towards him again. He could do something now. He could keep it from ever touchign her again.

He stood his ground as the fist came at him once more, blade crashing down on the spindly forearm. The flames erupted once more, the western wall where Ichigo stood bursting into flame. Nassatu's wounds were burning cold along his forearms, up his biceps across his chest. Rage and fury attacking at once as he forced himself forward. As the blade sliced through papery skin, putrid flesh and brittle bones. The creature retched, the honey thick urine bursting from its mouth and burning through it's remaining form. It bubbled and boiled, reduced to nothingness, leaving only a shard of black stone with a familiar red ribbon tied around it.

Ichigo reached for it, fingers pulling it from foul puddle it rest in.

"Ichigo, I'm so sorry."

He turned to see Orihime rising behind him, shaking.

"Are you...are you hurt?"

"No, it, I was so afraid. I've never been so afraid." She looked up. "We should get out of here. The ceiling looks like it's going to fall."

"Yeah." Ichigo helped her out of the room.

"That, thing just, I felt like no matter what, it was going to catch me. I couldn't move. Moving would just make it hurt worse. Fighting them off would just..." Orihime reached up to wipe her tears away, still unsure over any action. Still afraid that it would destroy her

"It's dead now. They are dead now." Ichigo put his hand on her shoulder, eyes widening as he saw his skin.

"Ichigo...what is that?"

He pushed his sleeve up, staring wide eyed at the skin until he removed the cloth to see his shoulder and chest. Nassatu's mark was no longer a series of scratches, but an intricate spiderweb of cuts creeping along his skin; holly leaves and iris blossoms created a macabre tattoo across his skin. Angry scarlet, thin as a strand of hair, followed the icy cold he'd felt during the fight. They would scab over once he left. He knew they would scar. He would carry these marks until the day he died and into all forms. He knew. Just as the pain had lasted in Tatsuki, the scar tissue over Nassatu's heart, so would he be forever reminded.

Ichigo put his shirt back on, picking Zangetsu up and pulling his phone out once more.

"I think I'm being punished," he admitted, brows furrowing over the blinking X on the screen of his phone. It was in the next room. "Let's go."

~!~

"Our line is charged with the butterfly gate. You know this right?" Tsubaki was bent over the table, holding Tatsuki's hand over the shards as she prepared an inkstone.

"The gate of rebrith," Tatsuki nodded.

"Sacrifice, and rebirth. If the gate is not opened, the sorrow and pain of life builds up and becomes trapped." Tsubaki let go of Tatsuki's hand, smiling when the younger woman kept her hand hovering. "If we do not collect this pain from the dead, it stagnates."

"It becomes a hollow," Tatsuki began to understand.

"Is that what they're calling them now?" Tsubaki shrugged, wiping her hand across the surface of the paper. The thick parchment began to wet with each pass of her hand. "Back to the point, the gate needs someone to close it as much as it needs someone to open it." She began to stretch the parchment out, widening the edges with care. "Except, your mother has been carrying out a forbidden ritual. It is normally only carried out when a priestess is not available. This ritual sends the sorrow through, but it does not open the gate."

"And you can't open the gate," Tatsuki nodded. "Can you tell me how to get there? I mean, you have to be alive to open the gate, right?"

"Just so, but even if a told you, it wouldn't be of any use." Tsubaki took Tatsuki's other hand and placed a brush in it. "The sorrow is too strong, poisonous even for me. Draw a circle, about as wide as your waist."

"So how do I get to the gate if it's blocked?" Tatsuki watched as Tsubaki began to paint on the parchment with her. She was writing out the spell.

"Well, there was a lantern hidden somewhere in the house when I was young. The diamond lantern was taken apart by my brother, he was angry with our mother for favoring me," Tsubaki finished a line before she began to paint across the back of Tatsuki's hand. A warmth spread up from the stone, through her arm and chest and down into the brush, down onto the paper. "You'll have to find it when you go back to rest."

"Right," Tatsuki didn't know why she started to doodle inside of the circle, but Tsubaki wasn't stopping her. It felt right. "And the lantern, it's going to let me close the gate?"

"Yes, it is." Tsubaki leaned over to look at the design, smiling sadly before she went back to painting up Tatsuki's arm. "Once you light it, Nasaru should appear and lead you to the gate. He's the only one who knows where it is."

~!~

Ishida wasn't sure if he should feel upset or grateful. The blazing house they'd led the Ice Heart to had housed a figure not unlike Orihime. Swaying to and fro within the blaze. They were forced to duck within, confused at the interior of the building as the creature outside screamed in pain. The ice creatur was melting with every swip and strike at the building, but within it was dry and cool, the walls made of ragged stone, as though they'd walked into a cave. The dampness stuck to their skin, it clung to the walls as they walked through, deeper inside and keeping to the cold light cast by the torches. Chad took one of them from it's bracket when the shadow stretched unbroken before them.

"I never knew Arisawa had...I never really knew Arisawa actually."

Admitting that relieved him. Now, knowing that he should have made more effort in the living world only made him want to help her more. He wanted to know her beyond the nightmares and attempted murder.

"She's very nice." Chad was forced to duck as they came to a low door. "She acts tough, prickly even, but she's actually very sweet given the right opportunity."

"You care for her," Ishida realized.

"I did. Before we started fighting hollows. I saw the look on her face when she saw Ichigo ignore her. Her heart was breaking." Chad looked around the room they ended up in.

A cell. That was only description they could use. A bed rest in the corner, simple steel frame more suited to an asylum with wide leather bands at the foot and the head. The woolen blanket was stained with uncountable fluids, brown and yellowish gray, greens and sickly bile orange. A pot rest beneath a chair in the corner, cold and filled with a thick black sludge.

Only the alter was without corruption. A single flame erupted from an old oil pot, illuminating the entire room as their larger torch could not. Ishida moved forward to inspect the immaculate place, tripping over a small book as he did so. Chad bent to grab it up, handing the torch to the prone archer.

"It's a guidebook," Chad furrowed his brows. "...let go of your life, that your soul might carry their pain to God. You must neither fight nor struggle as the blades sink into the cardinal points." Chad read the next point silently. His face went pale, as he set the book down on the dirt once more.

"What, what is it?" Ishida moved to pick the book up, looking up when Chad's hand wrapped around his wrist. "Chad, let me see."

The fighter let him go, standing and moving to inspect the shrine. There was a weight on him that any could see, his skin still pale and hands shaking faintly.

_The patron, with blade of blue_

_shall plunge his tool into the heart center._

_The soul shall be released_

_The suffering shall be carried over._

A list of names followed this instruction. Old names, all of them, on and one, some fading from sight while others had smudged and blurred. The last name truly caught his attention.

Ishida Souken – 1943

Ishida Souken – 1970

Ishida Souken – 1992

This what Chad was hiding from him. His grandfather had been a part of this. His Grandfather, his hero, had known about this place. He'd been...every 27 years he was sacrificing someone. Isida clenched his jaw, exhaling though his nose and continuing through the pages. Three others had been involved. The shopkeeper was to impale the stomach, the mother's blade would claim any inside the sacrifice's womb, and the crier was responsible for opening her throat.

"Ishida?"

Chad had taken the lantern from the alter; though dawn was approaching, their torch had gone out, leaving them with only the lamp to lead them out before the shift happened. The larger teen had extended his hand, waiting patiently for Ishida to rise. They'd been outside of the mall when they arrived, lord knew where they might be when the left.

"Yeah," Ishida nodded, not letting the book loose. "I need to talk to my father."

~!~!~!~

~!~

The Forbidden Rite shall be carried out only in the absence of She Who Speaks for God. The forbidden Rite may only be carried out every 10,000 days. The sacrifice must be pure upon her sequester. She must be cleansed, neither man nor woman nor beast shall gaze upon her. She must be broken, soul begging, that she might take sorrow into the realm of God.


	6. The Trial

Tatsuki let loose a shaking breath as Tsubaki's smile faded from sight, words echoing in her ears as a whispered secret resounds through canyons. The canyon of rice paper and bamboo, strips of wood and plaster and stone separating her from the outside. Rows of kimono spread across the room, a field of silk and memories, awaiting harvest; She sat between two. The brilliant, burning crimson on her left, the cold and screaming blue on her right. She remembered the delivery of each garment as clear as the pain in her thigh.

Ichigo was always red, he'd brought the crimson silk into her life the day he'd arrived. From the first day at the dojo, to the first day of school, and the last day she'd spoken to him as he crossed the threshold into the land of hunger. Even when he'd returned to class, when he'd followed her into Shizukami, a trail of red was left in his wake. The flow of his energy was red, reaching out for her, ribbons slinking out and trailing along her skin. He was fire, warming her soul and drawing forth a pure and joyful passion she'd only known to be dirty and cruel.

The blue was her past. Tsuki's past had come upon her the self same day she'd found the diary. Each line gripped her heart and when the kimono had shown up in the front room, lain out across the table for all to see, she was ashamed. Ashamed of herself for things she knew were not her fault; events she'd never known, but had echoed through time. She tried burning the silk. Tried tearing it and destroying it.

Tatsuki looked over at it, fingers grazing the fabric.

Her mother's magic radiated off of it, keeping her from ever truly touching it.

Silently, the priestess rose, heading into her room for a change of clothes. Peeling the wool and cotton from her cuts and wounds was a painful process, fibers trapped in the scabs, pulling them open as she sought to cleanse herself. There was no point in putting them into the hamper. No point in leaving them anywhere but the middle of the floor. There was no point in grabbing clean clothes with dirty hands or covering herself in silk. Not when the house was empty and the shower so close. Not when she wanted to be clean for just a moment.

The carpet was rough against her feet, scratching the tender flesh as she padded her way to the shower. Cold tile echoed with the sound of water spraying against it until it slapped wet against her skin. The heat seemed so foreign, running down her skin to pool pink in the bottom of the shower. Her muscles ached and every cut stung, nearly screaming as she soaped up, as her hair clung wet to the injuries. She was never going to be clean. Not the way she used to be.

The squeak of the faucet was the end of her shower. The growl from her lips was the end of her pants. All of them, gone. Stained, torn, destroyed by that world with it's hold on her soul. The dresser was empty, the wardrobe and the closet all sans clothing, everything gone away to the cleaners. Paranoia struck for a moment. What if they'd been taken from her? She felt exposed in her pants and sweater, surely she wasn't expected to go in her undergarments. Turning, she saw the fabric lain out on her bed.

"Why mother?" She lifted the first item with shaking hands. Paranoia turned to fear.

An impulse buy, one of her few bad habits, was resting there. A miniskirt she'd seen once, deepest, darkest red lace and tulle. So very feminine and something she'd been waiting for the perfect day to wear. Had her mother lain it out? Had God decided she must expose herself further? The hum of her stone earring smoothed her fear, eased her shivering fear and Tatsuki let a shaking sigh out as she slipped it on. The top was simple, black cotton covering her bust while lace extended down to her hips. Someone was trying to break her, though whether it was one or the other, they'd at least left her with tall black socks.

The window glinted, reminding her of the lantern she was supposed to find. The lantern, her duty, was more important than what she wanted right now.

She had some exploring to do.

~!~

Ichigo blinked as he began to transition. The faintest outline of a female form was fading from sight as the room became more solid. The more he tried to call to her, to see her, the less he could tell something had been there at all. Instead, he saw books torn from the shelves, the blueprints from earlier lain out, written on, scratched at with a ferocity and near panic. The wall Mrs. Arisawa had begun to repair was torn open once more, the shrine within torn down and a single stone jar cracked open in front of it. Ancient dust spilled across the floor, fingers had dug trenches in the mess, pulling something from it's depths. A frustrated echo of Tatsuki's voice came from the pendant as he surveyed the mess around him.

Orihime moved forward, slowly, as she began to make her way towards the desk and it's various maps of the house. Resting on the corner, a massive scroll was unfurled, rows upon rows of kanji and hirigana, dates, places, and occupation. The Arisawa family tree. There were certainly a lot more men than woman, most living only into their thirties. Some were marked as deceased immediately after the birth of a female child. Some of the sons were little more than a marking of birth, few had names, even less were gifted the family name. Occasionally, a son would live until he'd taken a wife and fathered a girl. Orihime continued reading, noticing with shock that since Yuuko was born, very few others had been. Only one other had lived past ten: Arisawa Tsume.

"Ichigo..." Orihime turned to see Yuuko coming in the door, eyes wide as she stepped into her library.

Ichigo poked his head out of the closet shrine at her call, eyes widening at the appearance of the witch.

"It wasn't us."

Yuuko's eyes slid shut as she inhaled deeply.

"It was like this when we got here," Orihime stood in front of the scroll, rolling it up behind her with silence and speed.

Yuuko held up her hands and shook her head, stepping over books and righting chairs as she walked into the room. Orihime slid the scroll into the back of her sweater as Yuuko neared the desk, stepping away and closer to Ichigo.

"At this point, I'm not even going to clean until this trial is over." Yuuko sat down, tossing the collection of maps to the side and turning on her computer. "Just be quiet."

Ichigo crept closer, gathering up the discarded maps and running out of the room with Orihime. The entire house had been searched they realized, heading towards the front door with their respective plunder. As they went, Orihime pulled the scroll out and Ichigo began to roll up the blueprints. They glanced at one another for a moment as they exited.

"We'll catch some sleep," Ichigo pulled his phone out. "Then we'll meet up here."

"Are you calling Uryuu?" Orihime asked. He nodded. "I think, I'm going to bring something to eat with us. I don't think Tatsuki has had time to eat."

Ichigo nodded once more, lifting the phone to his ear as he thought about bringing water. He waved his farewell to Orihime as he began his trek home. Uryuu took a moment to answer his phone, but when he did, Ichigo started talking. He laid out the plan he'd thought up, ideas on things they might have to bring and where he thought they should meet.

"Ichigo, shut up."

He stopped in the middle of the crosswalk, jumping when someone honked at him and hurrying across.

"We're at Urahara's. We found something in the village."

"I'll be there-"

"No. We're going to sleep. We'll meet up at Urahara's when we wake up and go from there." Uryuu continued when Ichigo opened his mouth to argue, knowing even as far as he was that the shinigami planned to argue. "Go to sleep Ichigo. Chad is already passed out."

He really couldn't argue.

"_Tatsuki-chan!"_

_Orihime ran towards the young woman, weaving through the throng of people in the mall. Her normally tomboyish friend tended to avoid the mall. She called the people inside thoughtless and the clothing within generic or uncreative. The food court was bland and so many other things to show her distaste for the building and it's contents. It had taken almost two weeks for Orihime to convince her friend. _

"_Hey," Tatsuki grinned, walking closer. A sweater was hanging over her arm and she looked pretty ragged. _

"_I'm really glad you came. You look tired though, we can put it off..." Orihime hoped she'd say no, but at the same time, she was worried. The look in Tatsuki's eyes was almost haunted. _

"_I was up reading last night," Tatsuki shook her head. "So, what's this new shop you want to show me?"_

Orihime sighed as she packed the knapsack for tonight. The new shop had sold accessories, and the only thing Tatsuki hadn't been able to take her eyes off of was a pair of blue earrings. They'd been bought up and sold before Tatsuki could pull a card from her wallet. Ever since that day, she and Tatsuki had gone to the mall to look for the non existent earrings. It was, used to be, a tradition. Then Orihime had started getting involved with hollows and Seireitei and she just didn't have time.

That was why she'd picked up the beads.

She put the last bit of food into the bag; sleep had been slow in coming. Too much had been floating through her mind, things that needed doing and collecting, people that needed contacting and things that would distract her.

It wasn't working so well.

Orihime reached into her cabinet for a bottle of sleeping pills.

~!~

The scent of herbs and dust always came with Urahara's. Sugar followed up behind, fruits and flower candies and the scent Ichigo could only describe as soul. Ururu met him out front, turning and leading Ichigo further into the shop. Not to the hidden room, but to a small living area in the back. Chad was already sitting at the low table, tea in one hand as he waited for the eccentric shopkeeper to begin. Orihime sat beside him, groggy as she rechecked a pack Ichigo knew to hold foodstuffs. Uryuu was the only one of them missing; considering how insistent he'd been they meet at Urahara's, Ichigo was about ready to go kick the teens ass all the way here. It wasn't until he saw Urahara that the Quincy's absence ceased to be an annoyance. Never before had the man greeted him with a frown, with sorrow in his eyes and the acceptance of being too old, too tired of seeing the shadows in the world.

"Now can you explain what's going on?" Rukia set the teapot down, lips pursed as she waited for the explanation.

"What are you doing here?" Ichigo asked. Yuuko had been pretty obvious in her feelings towards Rukia. "Where's Ishida?"

"I want to go," Rukia told him. "You need the help."

"Tatsuki's mind will try to kill you." Chad looked at the shinigami. "Her god is targeting the people who've hurt Tatsuki the most."

"I've never been anything but polite," Rukia's brows furrowed. "Why would she be upset with me?"

Ichigo sat down between Urahara and Chad, scrubbing at his face as Rukia began recounting her few experiences with his priestess. His hand stopped over his mouth, eyes widening as his heart stopped. His Priestess. What little breath remained in his lungs rushed out as he leaned back. His Priestess.

"She doesn't like you," Chad broke up both Ichigo's thoughts and Rukia's tirade. "Polite isn't the same as friendship." Chad set down his teacup. "Do you know, the first time I met Tatsuki, she was crying? She didn't come out and say it, but she holds Seireitei responsible for stealing him away from her. She thinks you're responsible."

"That's absolutely mad," Rukia shook her head. "I'm not even in charge of anything."

Ichigo was rolling his empty cup across the table's surface. He couldn't help the faint smile playing across his lips, so small and secret only one person in the world would see it. Only one person would know what it meant; he'd realized something. Something he should have realized a long time ago. Something he knew to be as sure as the rising sun.

Nothing could steal him away from Tatsuki.

Uryuu entered the room, yawning as he ambled to the floor between Orihime and Chad. There were scratches across his face and one lip had been bloodied. The scab was only beginning to form. He waved off Orihime's questions, instead accepting tea in an attempt to stay awake.

"Tell us what Tatsuki was doing with-" Rukia was cut off by the elder shinigami.

"Not Tatsuki," Urahara shook his head. He set the ancient tome upon the table, removing his hand from the parchment as though it froze his bones. Ichigo could feel Shizukami clinging to it. Only by the grace of God had ti come through into this side. "Uryuu was actually just told of the ceremony by his father and our guest." Urahara raised a hand as Rukia made to rise. "Not so fast. The Forbidden Rite is carried out by four pillars, families, sworn to the protection of the Gate.

"In desperate times, times when a priestess is either untested or unavailable, the Guardian is charged with purifying a sacrifice." Urahara paused, nudging the scroll open. With every turn, Ichigo could feel Her power spreading, quiet and demure in the light of day. "There is a low chance Tatsuki ever even knew about the ritual. After all, it wasn't performed very often."

"Every twenty-seven years." Ishida released a breath. "My grandfather was the last of my family to carry this...murder out." He looked up at Ichigo. "We have to rescue Tatsuki in the next three days. If we don't, the gate will open."

"And sorrow will spill unto the world," Ichigo finished. He was staring at the scroll, reading silently as his fingertips grazed the surface. "A sacrifice wouldn't work anymore. There's not enough time to purify a new one."

"You'd need ten years," Urahara nodded. "And our guest is beyond Yuuko's grasp now."

Ishida nodded. "She's seen our faces and heard our voices."

~!~

The echo of droplets on water sounded through the kitchen, melding with the sound of shoes tapping upon the floor. Brackish and black, the water gathered in puddles and between the tiles underfoot, running along thick, graying roots, mottled skins and sluggish sap sticking to the decrepit cabinets. Nothing moved save the priestess, nothing breathed or hungered. Only the priestess moved with purpose, searching through every cabinet and drawer for a single pane of crystal. Her gun was cold against her thigh, absorbing the chill of the tile as moisture clung to her legs.

Tatsuki blinked as a shaft of light flickered into her iris. Insistent, brighter than the rest of the beams fighting through the windows, it fractured into shades of hope across the wall. A thin pane of crystal sat along the top of the window, different than all the rest and yet unseen in the light of day. Nonexistent in the world of life; the windows had been replaced years ago. Here though, here in the world of shadows, where her ancestors still wandered, the crystal pane shone above an old stone basin.

Taking up a rusted kitchen knife, Tatsuki climbed carefully onto the counter top, rough stone scraping through her stockings as she balanced. The vines had been creeping since she entered the room, never aggressive or threatening, simply shifting. A stray thought entered her mind as the rusted blade slipped between the glass and it's frame. Once she removed the crystal, they might rise and attack her. They might sling and swing into her frame as her father's ax had branded her bed-frame.

"No." She popped the crystal from the frame. "It's a plant. And he's just someone's ghost."

She'd found one so far, buried in an urn in a room she hadn't even known to exist. Tsubaki's final resting place held more than her mirror, her brother had hidden the crystal away in her ashes. There had been no guilt over breaking the container open. Tsubaki had been insistent that she tear the house apart if needs be. The only thing she'd felt was fear. Fear that she would be caught by her father and teacher both. The fear that clung like vines around the room, the thick forest cove in which Tsuki hid and the kitchen that made Tatsuki's sanctuary. Yet even in the safety she'd feared.

"No place is safe from the woodsman." Tatsuki began to climb down from the counter. Hesitant toes upon the cold tile.

A soft glow came from the counter beside her, rougher and darker than the one she was still sitting on. Glyphs of God all but twinkled, soft white and blue, beckoning her over.

Tatsuki lifted her foot from the tile without though. She was tired. Tired and hurt, all she wanted was warmth. The touch of sunlight, even moonlight, would be a blessing. She climbed across the counter, uncaring when her skirt climbed and lifted. There were none here. Nothing in this safe haven to harm her.

Eyes fluttered shut as she came to rest upon the alter, crystalline shard in hand and gun in the other. Her experience with the shrines had taught her this if nothing else: someone would come. She would wake before they came, seconds would be left to make her escape if needs be, but she would be rested and ready.

She was still alone.

The glyphs continued to glow with soft blue and white light. Her haven was still that.

"For how long?"

Her toes hovered just above the water, the puddles had grown, melded together until the whole floor had become submerged as she slept. Patches were darker than other, lighter where the floor had decided to warp and rise. The broken tile path led around the room, to the back garden door and the dining room and to the pantry her grandfather had torn down before her mother was even born.

Tsubaki's brother-in-law, Tsuki's father, he'd taken the house apart and rebuilt so many times that her mother still referred to rooms that no longer existed. He'd been the one to hide the lantern pieces from the world. The one to destroy their world.

The priestess paused once more. Where would she go first?

"The pantry," she nodded. She almost wished she kept the doll. She'd have something to talk to. Something to help her feel less insane. Less lonely.

The water shot needles into her skin, thousands upon thousands all the way up to the middle of her calves. The cold seized her muscles and stole the breath from lungs; movement was a distant thought, everything around her was a distant thought as the cold crept up her form.

A burning hand wrapped around her bicep, pulling her up and away from the chill.

Her breathed exited in a groaning cry as she was pulled against a male chest. The chill turned to fear, terror even as she began to struggle against the gurgling creature. Only when she turned did she relax, the cold fear dripping from her form back into the liquid below. The black water below was eerily calm, serene even. The priestess reached up to gain a hold on her clacking savior. Holding tight to the ceiling, he began to move her closer to the pantry she sought out, horns dragging along the ceiling as he glanced between her and their destination.

"You need this place cleaned out too," Tatsuki decided. "The same sorrows, you're dying without something to eat."

Her guardian nodded, horns hitting the ceiling as he moved his head. He scuttled closer to the pantry door, moving his grip back to her bicep before lowering her; Tatsuki kept her feet lifted. She prepared to question the beast until she saw a very small tile resting upon the surface of the water. Lifted by the earth out of the water, the cold ceramic was her only hope of staying out of the cold fear. Her foot came to rest upon it, delicate as she kept her balance. She could see others peeking up from the water around her. Some cracked, others higher up and still others just below the surface.

The twinkle of crystal shone from across the room. Clacker still held tight to her bicep, helping her keep her balance. She could feel him growing weaker above her.

"Okay," she breathed. "Okay, I need to, look at the placement, and find the path..."

This was not her forte, but she would be damned if she simply gave up. She wasn't going to let the creature above her die. She was going to fix the mistakes of her predecessors.

Her flashlight only lit up part of her path, only illuminated enough steps to choose one path or another. Her beam hit the crystal once more, bouncing light across the room, dim but there. Tatsuki reached into her blouse, pulling the other shard out and placing it across the surface of her flashlight. A wheezing laugh came from above her as the room lit up.

"I am clever, aren't I?" Tatsuki laughed, taking the steps in once more. The path was obvious, only two steps posed any problem, but her will was strong and Nasaru was keeping her steady. Only once did she waver, the black water almost reaching for her as she moved.

She knew the cracked tile was going to crumble before she even set foot on it. It took a slight run, and she was forced to break Nasaru's hold on her as she balance across the next two tiles. Glancing back, she could see his wide smile above her. The final tile between herself and the pane was partly submerged, the cold and fear would try for her as she went for her goal.

"I'll make it through," she told him, clipping her flashlight to her waistband. She set the pane back into her bra, exhaling as threw all of her momentum into her jump. The more force, the less likely she was to remain frozen, right?

It tried. The liquid fear was climbing up her calf as her other fell upon the solid stone of the pantry floor. Two forces were pulling at her, one pulling down and the other pulling her forward and up. To light, to darkness, and Tatsuki was caught between. Her hand came in contact with the shelf, fingers tightening around the cold steel as her muscles pulled her towards it. She was not going to be defeated by scary water!

It fell away.

The water around her began to lessen, falling as the tiles began to rise back to their original place. A wheezing sounded above her before moving around her, down the walls and to the floor behind her, before the scratch of a horn was felt against her thigh. Tatsuki walked forward without fear, Nasaru following close behind her, feeding off of her to keep himself alive.

"I'm not upset," she whispered, wrapping her fingers around the crystal. It joined it's sibling seconds later, replaced immediately by the gun hanging from her waist. She was too used to surprise attacks and her guardian kept falling ill. "Go on. I'm going to hop across the roof again."

The creature tilted it's head at her.

"I Don't want you getting hurt. I know, you're an ageless demigod, you've been serving our Lady for longer than the gates have probably existed." She crouched down and looked into the dark holes that made his eyes. "I want to see you next time, when I bring in the new batch. Okay?"

Clacker tilted his head, purring almost as he scuttled out of the pantry. Across the floor, up the walls and into the ceiling. God only knew where he was off to, hopefully some place safe where he could rest or feed, some place far from the outside.

The one place Memory couldn't seem to get her was outside the manor itself. The one place Katashi could get to her. She could feel memory coming closer to the kitchen, ambling and shuffling with the speed of a killer. The dash out of the kitchen was almost terrifying; she could her the demon's laugh growing ever closer, the sense of dread and overwhelming need. Dark need, pulling at her heart and soul in a way she couldn't help but want to follow. How easy it would be, to give in, to give herself over to the memory. She'd done it before.

Tatsuki jerked when she fell into the garden.

The lines between herself and Tsuki were blurring, fading every time she came into contact with Memory, even if she hadn't seen the creature or touched her skin. Her laugh, the smokey sound of her voice, even a scream of rage broke the walls down a little bit more.

She stood, looking around the plot of land and at the chipping paint of deck chairs and rubble that was once a koi pond. Neither bones nor flesh remained within, the single glimmer of light disappearing the closer she moved. Whatever it hid was not here.

The gentle toc of the deer scare served as a reminder to the passage of time. Burned as it was, it still moved with the echo of water. Filling with nothing as it tiled and discarded the same. She hadn't tried for the roof from this place. Hadn't spent time in this place in either world, her black thumb saw to that; the skeletons of the dead served to remind her of that. Blackened thorns curled around enticingly as withered, brown lilies hung their heads in despair. She'd killed them, each and every one had been sent here, just as the family had been.

Tatsuki turned to face the house, tired of wandering around the night and fire blackened garden. Everything burned. It was the nature of the dragon, to raze the crops and lay waste to those who dared.

"Let's put in a trellis," Tatsuki mimed her mother as she caught sight of the last failed attempt. Roses. "We can plant some nice flowers." She grabbed hold of a lower rung. "I can get back to Tsubaki's room and finish my mirror."

~!~

Urahara was midway through explaining an idea when a tingle began at the back of Ichigo's skull. There was a hollow. He stood from his place moments before Rukia's phone went of, sword already out and badge on his chest, pulling his soul from his physical self. He'd known instinctively, God had told him the second the creature began to form. He was already ducking out of the window when the others realized what was happening and where.

The goddess was pulling him towards the pain of the hollow. Pity. He felt pity and sympathy for these beasts where before it had only been duty. Only anger that they would dare take what wasn't theirs.

A beastly hollow was lurching across the bridge, hanging over the side with wide, strong tentacles as it shook innocent drivers from their cars. None had died yet. He'd been summoned before anyone was hurt. Words fell from his lips as his sword intercepted the hollow's lunge towards a young man. Not his words, but the Silent God's. She was guiding him and as the words escaped, they wrapped around the hollow, settling on it's black form in angry crimson sigils.

His blade fell, cracking the mask of the hollow, slicing through the skull and the form like it was made from milk. The branding of his voice had begun to swallow the creature until nothing remained save a small spark in the air. Floating down into the river. He could feel the others approaching as he watched it descend. Still bright and furious, even in the rushing water, and calmly descending into the shadow.

"Ichigo," Rukia was next to him. "How did you know the hollow was here?"

The shadows beneath curled about the cinder as she spoke.

"I just knew. I got a feeling in the back of my head." He looked down at Zangetsu as he spoke; his words were running along the blade. The prayer he'd spoken as he sent the hollow into the realm of shadow and blood. No longer a shinigami, or a vaizard, not even an arrancar.

"Well, good job, I guess there's nothing to do but wait for one of the hell moths."

"I'm going to grab my body, and go back to Tatsuki's." His sword wrapped itself as Rukia leaned over to inspect it. "I found some maps lain out, marked up. She's looking for something, and if I can help her find it, I'm going to."

"And you're going to give it to her."

Rukia moved to stand in front of him. She had a fire, but it was a cold fire, bright and sharp and glaring to the eyes. It gave no heat, no passion or rage, only light. She didn't carry the scent of life on her. The scent of death was strong on all of them, but they all carried life in some form or other. Orihime carried the scent of sunshine, Chad smelled of rich earth, and Ishida reminded him of the deep woods, where even in the dim light, life grew. Reaching ever on for the sunlight.

"I am. The place she's in...I can't leave her there. I wouldn't let Grimmjow or even Gin rot there." Ichigo felt the black stone pulse inside of his pocket. "I can't leave her again. I can't let her suffer alone again."

Rukia watched him, studied him, from her place below him.

"I'll go ask around," Rukia told him. "Orihime found someone named Tsume in the family tree. Yamamoto must know something. My brother might too, if this goes above Gotei then he'll be the only one with information."

Ichigo nodded.

"I'm glad she didn't send you through, Yuuko I mean." Ichigo looked towards Tatsuki's home before staring at his hands. "It's not a place for shinigami. I can feel it in my bones."

He took off for Urahara's faster than he'd intended, he hadn't truly intended to go any speed, falling back into his prone body. No one questioned him as he sat up; Ishida had fallen asleep in his tea, Orihime was leaning against him. Only Chad seemed to be somewhat awake.

"There's four hours until sunset."

Urahara was fixing him with a look. His fan was put away, hat resting atop the table as he stared into the depths of his tea. Yoruichi was resting beside him, snoring softly as her tail flicked every so often.

"Set your alarm, get some sleep before you go back in."

Ichigo didn't know why he'd done it. He'd gone to rest, to sleep, beside her at the hospital. He found himself at her home and in her bed. He was closer to her here. Closer to where she actually was. Closer to her scent and the feeling of her magic and soul. Her body didn't have her scent anymore, only the scent of bleach, medicine, and paper sheets.

He'd done this before. Lain amongst his mother's things, clutched her necklace tight against his chest, tiny fingers bleeding from his white knuckle grip. Now he held a shard of black stone. Now he lay on the bed, seeing a side of her he'd never seen before. Bottles of perfume and ampules of oil sat beside poufs and jars of powdered makeup. Delicate lace hung from a drawer, contrasting sharply with the pile of torn and bloodstained clothing by her door. He'd looked through it. He couldn't let it lay there.

It had given him nothing. Only the knowledge that she'd kept fighting. She would always keep fighting.

~!~

Soft, feathery flakes fell from the sky, cold and hot at once. Snow and ash collecting on the roof around her as a great wave of emotion came into being. Rage and hunger, the roar of a hollow was silenced by the hungry, glee filled roar of Nasaru. The sound of tearing flesh was deafening within the courtyard of the Arisawa home. Tatsuki could see him feeding upon the sorrow and hatred of a hollow as the ash and snow fell upon her skin, burning and refreshing, just as the sight before her. Nasaru tilted it's head at her as she passed overhead, grinning at her, tendrils of putrid flesh clinging to his mask-like face and horns. Never had she seen anyone or anything eat with such gusto.

Never had she seen a hollow in her realm. Never once had anything from outside of her experience popped up in this place. A good many things were appearing thanks to outside forces though. Picture books from someone's childhood, Orihime's favorite knife in the kitchen, even Chad's broken guitar resting in the library.

No hollows.

This creature had been sent here. The glyphs of God were pinning it down, crimson energy binding it together as Nasaru tore it to shreds. The slow drag of the red swordsman's blade sounded on the roof behind her.

"Which one?" Tatsuki asked as he came to rest beside her. His blade was cleaner, slimmer. The rust and blood was lessened. "The old man or that wretched bitch?"

He didn't speak. Perhaps he couldn't, but that didn't mean she was unaware of his answer. Memory had retreated to the gate for now, feeding herself as much as the creature below them was. Ever silent, the swordsman refused to hide anything from her. The one person in either of her worlds who'd been nothing but honest so far. Now he was telling her that the man in White was coming for her. Her father's ghost could be heard hacking through the wood somewhere below them. The sound was getting louder, clearer the closer her came to her.

"Got any ammo on you?"

She hadn't expected him to drop it on her lap. Hadn't expected anything, so when the box of ammunition fell to her lap she'd been both pleased and surprised. When the knife was handed to her, she started to worry. Longer than the switchblade, this one was at least so long as her forearm, discounting a hilt the length of her hand. Familiarity washed over her as she took it. The jingle of bells and beads hanging from the hilt, the sheathe itself, even the kanji engraved upon the blade.

"Thank you," she nodded, pulling the blade loose. Clear and bright blue steel winked at her in the dim twilight of the realm. "I'm going to need this, aren't I?"

He made no noise, simply adjusted his grip and continued to watch Nasaru below them.

~!~

Ichigo awoke with a scream as icy claws dug into his chest. The dark ink of Nassatu was curtaining his form as her ice eyes burned into him with rage.

His hands were around her wrists, barely flinching as her face morphed from anguished beauty to the raging siren he knew her to be. The fangs snapped for his neck even as Nassatu's hands reached for his heart to fill the gap in her chest. Deep, endless, shadow pulsed from within, hungry for anything.

"God dammit," he grunted, forcing himself to kick her off. He'd fought many female foes, taken no mercy because they were women. They'd been trying to kill him. Nassatu was trying to kill him as well, but there was no hope of defeating her with a blade, not when her demise fell in sync with Tatsuki's. "Why do you keep trying to kill me?"

She was lunging for him again, eyes fixed upon his heart as her claws lengthened. The marque she'd left before was searing his skin once more, the pattern of holy and iris cutting deeper until the pain radiated through his bones and into his heart. Cracking across the muscle until he was sure it would break or burn.

He heard the noise again. The same noise she always made.

Ichigo flipped her around, never losing his grip on her wrists as he used her arms to trap herself against him. The pain lessened as her back came into contact with his chest, her struggles easing though never ceasing. Always reaching for His heart.

"Why?"

The noise he'd heard was a word. A word filled with a thousand more.

"It doesn't belong to just one," Ichigo grunted as she bucked against him. The maddened scramble of her claws against the backs of his hands stuttered a stop. "It belongs to all of you. Not Rukia, not Orihime. You, and Habassu, and Tatsuki." She asked again. Her form slowing until only the hitch of breathy sobs moved her frame. "Help me find the rest of you. I'll say it over and again, to all of you."

Nassatu stopped trying to break free. Her hand clasped around his wrist and she began pulling him through the shadowy mass on Tatsuki's bedroom wall. Slick, cold, oil wrapped around him in a thick mass. Only the biting frost of Nassatu's grip seemed to exist outside of the misery trying to enter his form.

God's fingertip pushed him forward into the world.

He was no longer in the manor, but a small hut. A rough wooden skeleton stretched across the ceiling, the boughs of felled timbers from centuries ago. Skins stretched tight across the beams, sewn together with strips of leather twine while rough stone climbed up similar walls, anchoring them to a place Ichigo did not want to see. Thick smoke was rolling along the top, filling the unpolished space with the scent of cedar and heat. And sitting there, in front of an ancient shrine, was Habassu. The succubus was swaying before the shrine, leaning to kiss each flame and stone. The icy grip around his wrist left him.

Nassatu was slinking along the walls, claws dragging into the leather and wood as she walked, leaving a trail of crimson pain in their wake. This room, this small hut existed in darkness, and healed itself with the magic of the silent god. She sank slowly to the ground, atop a pile of stained and torn silks. The rags and memories of spring festivals and girl's day celebrations.

He moved closer to Habassu, Nassatu swaying in her corner, back and forth her head moved with eyes closed and mouth opened ever so slightly. The one at the shrine finished her ceremony before turning to Ichigo. He found himself holding yet another woman off of his form. Eager to please, renewed and moving against him much as Nassatu had before. Bucking and struggling to get closer, affectionate instead of destructive.

"Not now." Ichigo struggled to keep her off of him. "Later!" It seemed to make her pause. "You need to show me where Tatsuki is. Otherwise it's not happening."

The very idea of surrendering himself to the pleasure of a monster would have made him growl before. Giving himself over to wicked pleasure and allowing a beast to use him as they saw fit. To use all of him if they wished. Habassu whined above him, lips grazing his cheek as her legs moved around his waist. They would have all of him when this was done.

Nassatu's silken strands floated into his vision, followed by the porcelain face, covered in dirt and blood, her lips brushed against Habassu's ear, moving slow and silent across her skin. Razor thing claws were tracing his skin along the marque and he knew that he had never held either of them at bay. Not once.

Habassu leaned forward, lips grazing his as cold metal fell from her mouth. Long and hard, the key exited her mouth to rest upon his. He felt the slick cold cover his skin as he began to sink into the floor, Habassu and Nassatu both staring at him as he did, assuring and expectant looks causing him to relax as the thick black oil covered his legs, his torso, up over his ears and his mouth, over his eyes and up into his nose. He was floating in the thickness, in the decaying misery and fear. Fragments of anger and vengeance pushed him up and out of the waste, into the cold tile of the kitchen.

The key still rest upon his mouth.

His arm was light as he reached for it, almost weightless after his journey through the black. The key was cool in his hand, shining brass too bright for this land; the kanji for lantern was raised under his thumb while a glyph was indented on the back. Lantern.

If his phone could map out the manor, perhaps it could show him where this room was hidden away.

She was showing him how to find Tatsuki.

The map shifted after the photograph was loaded up. The door that would lead him into the dining room was a strange sort of gold on the map, a line of gold leading him through rooms and to stairways. He didn't have time to waste, not when she was locked away somewhere far from him.

The crash of figures gave him pause when he burst into the dining room. Swingers were flinging themselves at him, dropping from the ceiling in an attempt to crush his being, blades shining dangerously from gaping, pulsing mouths. One nicked his bicep before meeting it's demise. Still more fell, bulbous sacks of flesh pounding against the wood as the blades sought only to penetrate his flesh. The path through the beasts matched the golden line his phone had shown him before. The next room as well. The gaping mouths were matched by wooden dolls, sickle blades combining with razor edges as they and the swingers both came after him in earnest.

Something darker and more sinister was responsible for them. Pushing them towards him to keep him away from Tatsuki.

~!~

Orihime jerked to the side as wooden dolls lunged for her and Ishida. Sado had been in the back room when they'd crossed over, speaking to the girl they'd rescued from Yuuko. Assuring her that she would be safe, never again would she be forced into a cave. Her life was valuable as a life, not a sacrifice.

The dolls seemed to disagree.

No life was sacred to them. Ishida's arrows pinned them to the trees surrounding them. They were far from Shizukami, far from Kura Village and the manor. Urahara Shoten was nearly on the outskirts in the real world. Now, it was nothing but a tiny statue in the middle of the forest. The statue of a man and a woman, holding tight to one another, one with a butterfly, the other with a sword.

The dolls had rained down from the trees, blades glinting like water as they howled with the wind. Yuuko had started to interfere. She and Ishida could both feel her magic coming off of the wooden maidens. Each carried Yuuko's dark touch. It had turned dark. So very dark. Orihime hadn't met the woman since she'd gone to fight hollows, what few times she'd caught her, she hadn't paid attention. She should have.

She should have noticed that Yuuko, her second mother, was evil. Not the sort of evil Aizen was, not so organized as the arrancar, where even their justice and law was logical, but evil in a way she'd never known before. Controlling and vicious. Ruthless in it's quest for strength and control.

Her shield was seeing heavy use this day, splitting the dolls in twain as Ishida did his best to pin them down.

"We're going to have to run for it," Orihime finally shouted over. "We're in the middle of the woods, they're just going to keep coming."

"Agreed," Ishida began along the faint path that would lead them closer to the village. Closer to a shrine or a temple. Closer to anything that would lead them to Tatsuki.

The path didn't lead them to the village, but it did lead them towards the back of Arisawa manor. Both ran inside, Ishida still firing his arrows as Orihime kept them shielded from oncoming attacks. The door tot he outside slammed shut once they entered, and while it shouldn't have done any good, it did. A door in a broken conservatory shouldn't have kept anything out. The frame of the former room should have caged them in, trapped them. Yet the faint shimmer of icy blue magic rippled where glass once was, indigo light shadowing across the broken marble and withered plants.

Miniature shrines ringed around the room, candles shining with bright white and blue flames while small clay idols stood atop each shrine. Funerary offerings, prayer dolls, flags and incense. Each doll was male, one for each Orihime had seen in the family tree. Yet, one such figurine was set aside from the others. One small shrine was undecorated, the doll incomplete and unpainted, wooden head resting in a bowl of putrid rice, rotting with the grains. The candles shone with only blue flame, the blinding white of the candle wax bringing someone familiar to Orihime's mind. Someone she couldn't place until she saw a small figurine resting beside the unfinished offering. A cat.

"Grimmjow," Orihime crouched in front of the shrine.

"I sincerely doubt..." Ishida paused. "Actually, forget it. I wouldn't be surprised at this point."

"That's not true." Orihime couldn't help but smile at the tired archer. "Think how surprised you were when Rukia told us she'd found a relative of Tatsuki's?"

Just before they'd left, Rukia had returned, worrying her lip as she reported her findings. The chances of the family member coming to the living world were low, however, the Gotei had great respect for the Arisawa clan. Allowances were likely to be made should Yuuko or Tatsuki take responsibility for him.

"That just makes this less surprising," Ishida sighed, bending to look at the shrine with her.

Their worlds had been torn apart yesterday. The Forbidden Rite had destroyed any illusion of goodness in the world. Ichigo's uncle, Ishida's grandfather, Yuuko...they'd been sacrificing women for ages. Ever since Tsuki had died they had been trying to keep the world from destroying itself, but why had Tsuki died? Why hadn't she been sent back, mad though she may have been?

"I think we should put it together."

Orihime looked at the quincy once more, shaken from her thoughts and the look on his face. He didn't know Tatsuki, not really. Sure, they were classmates and it seemed his grandfather had known Yuuko, but that wasn't any real basis for coming along.

"Why did you want to come?" Orihime asked as they collected the pieces on the shrine. The cat head had already been on top, combining with the torso. Orihime was trying to put the feet on the legs.

"Support. I may not be friends with Tatsuki, but I care for the same people she does." Ishida finally removed the cat's tail, picking up the torso and pressing the strip of fur onto it's backend.

"The same people," Orihime set one of the legs aside, cat's paw attached where a foot had been. "I'm very glad to have friends like you and Tatsuki-chan."

She missed the bitter sigh that came from Ishida.

The doll was completed rather easily, set before the candle in a standing position before it sank into a crouch of it's own accord. The bright blue flames grew brighter, light reaching up in soft beams before curling to meet one another in an arch. The flicker of the shielded greenhouse dissipated from the doorway they'd created. The only door way aside from the one they'd entered.

It led them into a very dark room. The blue lights from before flickering within, lighting a path forward into the darkness. Orihime took Ishida's hand without thought as she crawled into the small doorway, into the room of shadow and mystery. Down the path of sacred blue light, the path that moved ever deeper into the earth itself. They were in the basement, now, surely. Yet the incline went deeper than that, further into the earth until they found themselves facing a wall. The earth itself was imbedded with the jawbone of some great beast, dinosaur or demon, Orihime didn't know. But the jagged teeth and jaw created a doorway into solid rock.

"This...is slightly disappointing," Ishida found himself saying. His moved his hands along the surface of the stone, knocking on it as he went. The stone was thin, a hollow sound with each knock. "I think it's protecting a room."

"I think you're right," Orihime spoke, tracing a keyhole with her nail. "I don't think bashing through is going to work though. We need to find a key."

A key. If only every obstacle was so easily removed. If only everything had a key If only hearts had a key. Then he might be able to get past the wall around Orihime's. He might be able to show her that there was more to life than Ichigo. Ishida pulled his phone out, snapping a shot of the room they were in. The Maw of Nergal led to the Lantern Room and beyond that a fuzzy, faded room. A room he knew he wasn't allowed to enter.

"Let's head back up. The conservatory has another door, probably above another shrine."

He offered his hand to her, eager to just touch her. They were much more likely to die in this place than Hueco Mundo, Seireitei, even in normal battle around Karakura. The sheer pressure of sorrow and rage was more than th spiritual pressure of any spirit they'd fought before. Greater than that of Bayakuya or Yamamoto, more sinister than Ganz and Ulquiora, it was too much wear on the soul. It slowed response and perception, it hurt to breath at times and in some places, he'd wanted nothing more than to shut his eyes and stop moving.

"Where do you think Chad ended up?"

"I don't know. But Shizukami doesn't seem to have anything against him." He was the only one to explain to Tatsuki where they were going. Each and every time, he'd explained to her what was going on. She was his friend, he explained. The one he could talk to about problems another man wouldn't understand. The one who actually came to his shows, even when others didn't. Tatsuki usually went to the ones Ichigo didn't, splitting Chad fifty fifty, like parents sharing custody of a child.

"Maybe he'll find her then."

Maybe.

Maybe Aizen would start a soup kitchen.

~!~

Chad was very confused. He ran into his fair share of Swingers, and more recently he'd begun to fight strange, two headed creatures crawling about their bellies, but aside from that, he was left alone. The only creatures he fought bore the mark of a witch. He could hear the scuffle of creatures above him, the hacking of some such beast further still, but the silence of the room around him was unnerving when combined with the lack of aggressive creatures. Even the men he destroyed in the walls and the floors wasn't enough to put him at ease.

The rooms around him weren't either.

Each labeled with the name of a different priestess, each constructed exactly the same as the last, only small details marked any sort of ownership. The evolution of technology and the collected hobbies of each one. Ugetsu the flutist player, Mutsuki the painter, Ingetsu the poet and Tsukino the florist. The rooms went on and on, a library of priestesses and their lives. He went into each one. Saw the echos of each priestess, smiling demurely as he entered, inviting him to take tea or listen for a moment. He did. Each and every room a safe haven full of information. Some useful, some less so, but every echo seemed to send him off with a new tidbit of information.

No moon was the same.

Three rooms remained unexplored. Tsubaki the Mad, Tsuki the forlorn, Tatsuki...she had no title. Not yet. He knocked lightly on Tsubaki's door, surprised when a voice invited him in. None of the others had responded.

"I am getting so many visitors."

A young woman was standing in the middle of the room, filling in the outlined footprints on the floor; ink-stained feet were answer enough to whom they might have belonged to. She was alive. Not an echo or a ghost. She was alive. The crimson blossom in her hair was bright with magic and energy, the dark hair was recently brushed, though falling into tangles quit quickly. Even with the light of madness, she was beautiful.

"Such a shame, I would have loved you to be my first."

Her giggle had him blushing, asking if he might sit with her for a moment.

"You may as well," Tsubaki dipped her brush into the ink. It was thickening and Chad found himself adding more water to the stone. "Thank you. I'm the last one you know. My niece is stuck in a demon's body and my grand-niece is running around doing two tests at the same time." She sat up, putting the brush to her lips. A web of black ink spread across her lips. "I suppose I only have one niece, don't I? Clever little girl, retesting," Tsubaki leaned to paint once more. "I hope she passes this time. I don't think she could survive taking it a third time."

"Tatsuki and Tsuki are the same?"

"Mm," she nodded. "But her soul is stretched so very thin. Even now it's stretched so very thin. Bits and pieces spread all across the realm. The demon has one piece, Habassu another, Nassatu another still...and Yuuko. Dreadful girl. I told my sister not to marry that man."

Yuuko had never liked her father's choice in wives. Wives, concubines, geisha, courtesan, none of them had been good enough. Even her stepsister had done nothing but sully her father. How dare she...making the great Kurosuchi Katashi lust for such a heathen girl. A priestess of foreign faith, her family wasn't even from Nihon.

The witch swirled her scotch, watching the show in front of her. Watching as each women lowered herself, demeaned herself for money. The misery and bitterness was lovely. Perhaps she should sacrifice them as well...

The same way Hatsu tried to sacrifice her. A blade to her throat, fire to her body. She'd done the very same to Tsubaki at the behest of her father. Fully prepared to take the silly Arisawa test and take her place as the matron of the family. She was the eldest, it was her right. Instead it had gone to Tsuki.

Along with her father's affections.

"Dreadful, dreadful girl." Tsubaki took a kimono down from the rack, fingers running along the crimson silk. "Take this to Tsu-tsu, hm? And find Tsume, he knows more than I do. How odd...a man know more than the priestess..."

Her mad giggle followed him out of the room, echoing in his mind with the name of Tsume. Out from the room and into the manor proper. The strange hall of priestesses was gone, replaced by the modern halls of Tatsuki's home. Faded posters and paintings and scrolls hanging beside torn rice paper. Her favorite room was the kitchen. The kitchen and the garden. His feet led him towards the kitchen instead, one led to the other and he could almost feel the others wandering around the manor. Tsubaki would wait for them here in the kimono room, he knew, and he would find Tsume and deliver the crimson robe to Tatsuki.

He ran into Ichigo sooner than he thought he might. The orange haired swordsman was hurrying through, slashing into the dolls and walking in a very strange and specific path. A single punch cleared the room when combined with Zangetsu.

"What did you find?" Ichigo looked at the mass in his hands.

"A ceremonial robe." He held it out for Ichigo to see. The teen took it with near shaking hands, scarred and scabbed more than they had been when they entered. He looked different than the last time her entered. Spider thin scars were climbing up his neck, iris blossoms and holly leaves, a scaly pattern popping up in the petals along his arms and on his chest.

"You're looking a bit rough," Chad spoke as he took the robe back.

"I'm feeling it," Ichigo nodded. He held a key up, offering Chad the opportunity to inspect it. "Did she ever say anything about a lantern to you?"

Chad shook his head. She'd never said anything.

"Ishida and I found a lantern in the cave where we found the girl."

She wouldn't give them her name. It had been stolen from her, her name, her parents, she still didn't believe she was alive. It might take weeks before she remembered anything from her old life. Maybe longer.

"It had the same marking," Chad turned the key over to look at the ancient symbol. "All around the base, it feels similar too."

"Did you leave it at Urahara's?" Ichigo accepted the key once more, sliding it onto the ribbon he'd begun wearing around his neck. The brass clinked against the stone, a brazen echo resounding through the study as a crash shook the entire house, beams splintering around them in a wave from the direction of the living room. It was in their nature to go and inspect the noise.

"Yeah." He turned to a door Ichigo hadn't seen; there was too much surprise on his face when it opened. "She wasn't in the kitchen?"

"No, I was going to look in her room."

Chad shook his head, leading the now unknown fighter into the parlor. Neither arrancar, nor shinigami, neither vaizard nor human. God had transferred his sword out of the spiritual world and into the real one, she'd changed him and his way of sensing things. She was creating her own agent, a man to serve her and her priestess both.

They were both distracted by what they saw in front of them. The body of a young woman, blonde haired and pale skinned, she had been garbed in a skirt and vest. Had been. It was torn from her, her body desecrated and covered in the filth of Katashi. No one else could have done it. None but the men grabbing for her under the floor, the ones leaning towards her from within the walls.

He hadn't expected Ichigo to send a cero at the body, vaporizing it and half of the men trapped under their leather bonds. He'd cleansed her. Sent her on into the next realm.

Tatsuki put her hand on the roof when it shook. Her swordsman shifted his stance as well, digging his blade into the tiles of the roof as his hand wrapped around her bicep. His hand kept her kneeling when she tried to stand, joining her in a crouch upon the roof. His hold was ready to pull her behind him. She'd never heard of any Sagasu going to such lengths to protect a priestess. Only a few times had there even been record of his doing so.

The roof shook once more and she tightened her grip upon her gun. The roof finally gave out beneath them, sending the two down into the home, down past bedrooms and shocked faces, into the parlor below. The doors were blocked, one by the rubble, and the other by Katashi. His ax flew, pining her red man to the wall and drawing a terrible groan from her protector. One either side of the swordsman, Tatsuki could see forms rising from within the walls. She could feel the twitch of the floorboards beneath her as echos began to take shape underneath.

Fingers grasped at her wrists as she shot up, fingers wrapped around her gun. She lifted the firearm, taking aim at Katashi before she squeezed the trigger. Shot after shot was fired before he charged at her; thick black liquid pulsed from each bullet-hole she gave him. He didn't even fall when she fired into his skull. The floor was filled with grasping hands and gaping mouth as she ran, dodging and ducking, keeping an eye on Katashi and the floor both.

She stumbled, rolling to the side to avoid the man in white as the red swordsman roared once more. The ax was morphing into a cage, binding him to the wall. The hands beneath the floor were growing as well, one grabbing her ankle while the other grabbed her wrist.

"No." She made to pull her gun on the appendages. One of the gropings had stolen it from her as others took hold of her waist and thighs.

A shrill whistle pierced the air.

Tatsuki's eyes grew wide as she saw the metal whistle fall from beneath the white mask of her tormentor.

~!~

"I keep running across them," Ichigo admitted as he followed Chad through the room. "I think the realms are blending together, Kura Village is falling apart without a priestess, so other girls are coming in."

"You're probably right." Chad's hand stopped as Tatsuki's scream overrode the whistling in the next room.

Only by chance did he dodge Ichigo's attack. Half of the wall was very suddenly gone from in front of Chad. The dark goddess of this realm was changing them all, but none so much as Tatsuki and Ichigo. Chad moved forward, intent on helping, but the scream of a doll made him turn.

He hadn't expected his shunpo to work, but the rage and fear for Tatsuki had him inside of the room and swinging his sword before he could take a breath. The creature in white had removed his mask, leering at Tatsuki as the grabbing hands held her down and tore her clothing. Yamata's burned flesh filled the room with the cloying smell of rotting meat and smoke. Even distracted by the girl on the floor, by the hands stripping her of dignity, he was quick enough to block Ichigo's swing. White Yamata turned to face him fully, sneering at him as he pulled an ax from his waist. The wide, long blade glinted red in the flickering lights on the wall. Flames licked along the wood as Yamata came at him, half of his face blackened and the other half bubbling under the skin.

A roaring creature was strapped to the wall, equally grabbing hands coming for him as Ichigo fought in earnest with Yamata. No trying to get away, no trying to make him back off, he was going to die.

Tatsuki was screaming again behind Ichigo, his subconscious placing him between the threat and the priestess, but her cry caused him to loose his footing. Yamata's ax was barely blocked, the blade cutting into Ichigo's thigh before he was flung against the far wall. He watched as two men and white shambled over to two of his loves. His strong woman was crying, broken, and Ichigo would not see it again.

The red beast flew towards him as Ichigo prepared to call upon his ban kai. Two monsters to fight? So long as she was safe, he didn't care. As the call left his mouth, the helmet fell away from the red swordsman and his blade slimmed, deep crimson enfolded his figure as Tensa rejoined Ichigo. The rush of lost power returned to him as his getsuga tenshou flew at Yamata's hunching form.

His strike would not harm her, could not harm her.

Yamata was sent across the room, bouncing off of a crimson shield that kept him inside the room. Chad's presence on the other side barely registered in Ichigo's mind The only way to make sure something was dead was beheading. As the beast tried to stand, Ichigo swung, Tensa sending the creature's head across the floor. A ripple spread across the room, the guardian right on it's heels as he moved away from the rapidly disintegrating body and over to Tatsuki. The hands had gone away, leaving only the shaking form of Her.

"Tatsu, it's okay. He's gone." Ichigo removed his jacket as he knelt in front of her. She fought him as he tried to wrap his arms around her. "I promise, he's gone."

Each blow was weakening, her form shaking all the more as her silent tears turned into sobs. Covered in soot and tears, he wrapped his coat around her, his own saline drops joining hers. Streaks led from his face and across her skin as they dropped from his jaw. She'd stopped when his first tear fell, fists gripping tightly to his shirt, anchoring herself to him.

"He's never coming near you again," Ichigo whispered against her hair. "Never. I won't let him."

The sound. The mumbling Nassatu sent him, the whisper against his ear Habassu gave him.

"Why?"

"I love you."

Ichigo hadn't known she could fall apart any further, but the renewed keening made him wrap his arms tighter around her body. He'd never known she was so small, her presence had always seemed bigger, her temper made her intimidating, a force of nature. But here, in his arms, she was so small and fragile, he might break her at any moment and had done so with three simple words.

"I love you," he repeated. He lowered himself to look her in the eyes, hands on either side of her head as she rose to look at him. "I have never wanted anything more than to know you were safe. I failed you."

"No," Tatsuki whispered, shaking her head. "No."

"I did. I hid from you, and I lied, and the one time it really counted, I wasn't there." Ichigo's hands fell to her shoulders. "I'm not leaving you. Not again. The world can fuck itself, I'm not letting you go." He inhaled, shaking from the pain and adrenaline. "I love you."

"Why?" Her eyes had never been so dark, nor so watery. "Why..."

"Because you're the only person who's ever knocked me on my ass every time." Ichigo pulled her against his chest again. "Because every time I get in a fight, I want to impress you, even if you aren't there. Because I would rather die a hundred deaths than know you weren't there when I came back."

Her hands wrapped themselves in his shirt again, the sturdy black silk slipping from her shoulders as she let herself relax in his lap.

"You're an idiot," Tatsuki shuddered out.

His energy was pushing everything else away. Her ghosts were dead, the floor nothing but rotting pine. The scent of him, of steel and sweat, calmed her. His steel was clean and cool rather than hot and painful. The sweat of his brow musky instead of sour, imbued in the jacket around her form and the cotton in front of her, in the skin resting against her hair and the legs keeping her from the ground. Keeping her away from this place, if only for a moment.

"I know. It took my twelve years to figure something simple out."

The watery laugh of building hysteria worked its way out as his hand settled on her back. His hand was warm over her heart.

"I need you," Ichigo spoke above her. She could feel his cheek resting against the top of her head as he began to rock her. "You are my purpose."

She had no witty thought regarding the emotional gamut. Nothing to summarize her run from determination and anger to fear and despair to utter shock, happiness, and love.

"I love you too," she shifted to look at him. His black eyes had lightened to honey brown, looking at her as though she had invented the sky and the earth and everything in between. "I just realized it sooner."

The dam of emotions broke. Hysteric laughter bubbled between them as they held tight to one another, tears falling to the floor and washing away the darkness and the browned blood. This was love. A spot of light in the misery of the world. An easing of pain and the rescue from misery. A place of rest for the exhausted soul. As their outpouring eased, soft whispers moving between them, they became aware of those approaching them.

She slipped her arms into the jacket fully, wrapping it around her form as her guardian helped her to stand.

"The red swordsman," she breathed, looking to where he'd been trapped. He was gone, though she could still feel him near.

"This guy," Ichigo lifted his sword. The steel fluttered with the image of a man for a brief moment. "His name is Tensa, and he figured it out first."

He'd never left her. A tired smile was brought back to her face.

Orihime's bright hair caught her eye, along with the soft pink of Chad's shirt and the blinding white of Ishida's clothes. She found herself turning to Ichigo, hiding her front from the others. His jacket covered her arms, the back of her legs and her stomach. It was straining to cover the rest. She turned her head to see them, surprised when Chad handed her the crimson kimono from her room. Her room in her time.

"I can help you tie it." Orihime's suggestion was more a question.

"Thank you." Her voice broke, tears falling anew as Orihime rushed over, pushing a bag at Ishida as she did.

It was surreal. It was so far from perfect that normal seemed a distant dream. Her copper haired friend was holding her tight as her beloved kept a close eye on everyone and everything. The crimson silk of the kimono added a soothing weight to her shoulders and the familiar voices helped her to relax. Perhaps, soon she would finish. Soon, she could rest.

"I need to find another shard." Tatsuki broke away from Orihime to search the corpse. "Another piece of the lantern, another shard of the mirror. I need to find them."

"Tatsuki? What do you mean?" Orihime's worried question echoed not just her thoughts.

"Without the obsidian I can't leave, without the lantern I can't open the gate." Tatsuki pushed her way through the dust and ash, fingers closing round something hard and cold. A pane of crystal. "The sorrow will spill out if I don't open the gate. Shizukami will take over Karakura and spread across the plane of the living."

Ichigo knelt beside her, pulling her hands from the soot before he pulled the black glass from his pocket and pressing it into her hand.

"What else do we need?" he asked. Did he know what it meant? Did he know that 'we' was all she'd ever wanted from him? Tatsuki shook away the building tears. It was time for business. She was safe with him, safe to focus on what mattered.

"The base of the lantern," she nodded. "We need to go forge the mirror and rebuild the lantern with Tsubaki."

"The mad woman upstairs," Chad nodded.

"Is the lantern brass?" Ishida asked, crouching to dig through his own bag. "The base I mean, and it has..." he trailed of as he pulled the object from his bag. "It seemed important."

Tatsuki couldn't help the laugh that escaped her lips. So much at once, she was exhausted from the journey and still she was unfinished; they had made things easier. Rising on shaky legs, Tatsuki was glad to lean on the man who'd come for her just in time. They needed to head for Tsubaki, and the more time she spent in this manor, the easier it was to navigate. When Ichigo didn't move forward with her, she pursed her lips. What was so important that...

"Why are you playing with your phone?"

"It has a map," Ichigo held it up. There was so much innocence on his face that she couldn't be overly mad.

"I've been here for almost four days," Tatsuki took the phone from his hand. "I know how to get to my aunt in my own home."

He followed her when she began forward, supporting her as they went. She didn't want to walk right now. She didn't want to walk or move, she just wanted to sit in his arms, where she was safe from this terrible world. His hand tightened around hers as they got to the stairway. He wasn't leaving, he said he wouldn't leave her, she was his. The soft hum of her earring made her pause, freehand reaching for a gun she no longer had. No, no, she couldn't be helpless right now.

"Arisawa."

Ishida held the weapon out to her, wiped clean in between now and when she'd dropped it.

"You keep pulling stuff out of your hat," Tatsuki accepted the gun. She looked over to Ichigo, watching the room around them, prepared to fight off whatever was coming. "Come on."

The climb up the stairs was slow going. She was so tired, and now that she had someone to watch over her, she could feel sleep coming for her. She wouldn't let it claim her yet. Nto when she was so close. Tatsuki had to tug on her companions several times to keep them on track. She knew where she was going and only she could navigate the labyrinth of her mind. His phone might lead him to Tsubaki eventually, and Chad might just have come from the room after one flight and a left, but Tatsuki knew the way to the only safe place in the manor. Turning and climbing, stumbling against her softy net every so often. The door to the kimono room was cracked, warm light spilling across the blackened floorboards.

Even if the others hadn't noticed, she had seen a certain lack of figures beneath the walls and the floor. He was really gone. Yamata's memory, Katashi's memory, they were just that. Her life had always been as such, and even if it was filled with the memories of her previous life, even if she could remember her mother being her sister and her little brother trying to kill her in the park last fall, it was all hers. Just like the man who'd kept a tight hold on her hand as they walked.

"You're back." Tsubaki's voice was surprisingly low. When she opened her arms, eyes full of knowing, Tatsuki went forward, falling to her knees as she embraced her aunt. "Did you get yourself put together?"

"Yes." Tatsuki sat up. "I had to be torn apart first. My soul went in a little crooked." Tatsuki reached out for Ichigo as her aunt moved to the other side of the table. When he sat beside her, garbed in nothing but his bandages and hakama, she was reminded of a very big secret he'd been keeping from her. He was going to tell her too.

"You're projecting." Tsubaki's voice pulled Tatsuki out of her head, steel eyes staring pointedly at Tatsuki's spreading shadow. Her aunt stood, leaving behind the wet ink and the parchment from before, still damp and glowing with crimson and indigo light. "You are going to finish your painting. Then we will forger the mirror." the priestess looked over at the other three. "You two are going to put the lantern together and you" she pointed to Orihime "need to fix something for me."

The boys nodded, pulling out the bits and pieces as Orihime was given a small bundle and a needle with thread. It left the priestess and her guardian sitting at the low table.

The smell of linen, old and new, was spilling around them, combined with silk and the blood that clung to Tatsuki's form. The soot that stayed with her still and the sweat in her hair. It mixed with the scent of steel and heat coming off to Ichigo, his own hair stiff with the buildup of liquids, both known and not. He shifted beside her, leaning over to grab something and dragging one of the packs over as he sat up. His hand was resting beside her own, waiting to take it as his again.

"Here." Bottled water. Something to replace the tears and the cold sweat shed this night.

"I'm...I'm still upset with you." She couldn't even open the damn thing. Her hands were shaking too much and her strength was draining away.

"I know." He twisted the cap off for her before handing it back. Dark eeys were watching her, glinting gold in the candlelight. It wasn't cold, but ti was clean, and never had she needed it so badly. The sweetness of the liquid had never been so crisp. She pulled it away, resting it in her lap. She still couldn't stop shaking.

"No more secrets. I can't take any more secrets." She really couldn't. Not now, not for a while after this had ended. "I just found out I was murdered by my mother, my sister, I don't' know. She killed me, and now she's been sacrificing girls and...I can't take it."

"No more secrets," Ichigo agreed, taking the water from her. He replaced it with an open package of trail mix. "I'm sorry I lied to you about seeing ghosts. Down by the bridge, after school. I didn't want you to make fun of me."

"I wouldn't have teased you." It was too salty. She pushed the snack away. "Not about that."

"Just everything else." Ichigo's arms were pulling her back into his lap. Back into the protective cocoon that was him. "Right before the new girl came, I had my second encounter with a hostile ghost. They're called Hollows."

She fell asleep sometime around them trying fight off the bounts while Ishida tried to talk his not-girlfriend into helping them fight or something. She wasn't sure.

Orihime paused in her sewing, eyes finding the two on the other side of the room. Tatsuki had fallen asleep, leaving Ichigo to watch over her as a knight watched a princess. The knight, the spirit of his zanpaktou, even his hollow, glinting just beneath the surface, were in harmony. Agreeing on a single thing for the first time. The tap of cloth against her hand drew her attention back to her task. The spirit of friendship was staring up at her with one blue eye and a pursed mouth. Drawn years ago, right after she and Tatsuki had met, both girls too amped up on sweets to sleep through the night.

"They really do fit together," Orihime smiled down at the doll. She continued her work, jumping slightly when Tsubaki smacked Uryuu with a roll of parchment. "If only the boys could get that to fit together."

She was repairing the dolls dress with a scrap of fabric when Tatsuki made the first noise of awakening. A scrap from a old kimono slowly morphed into something new. They were all becoming something new. Ichigo hadn't so much as picked up a brush in the years she'd known him. And yet, he sat, painting with Tatsuki, holding her hand steady as the dragged the brush across the paper. Thick black bands blooming into an image she'd yet to see. It would be beautiful. Everything they would create would be beautiful.

~!~!~!~

~!~!~

~!~

"There, love is the meeting of two meteors in the middle of space, and not this obstinacy of rocks rubbing each other to ignite a sparking kiss." - Obsidian Butterfly by Octavio Paz

Bands to Listen to:

Break of Reality – still an indie band, cello rock with a goodly dose of anguish, sorrow, and rage, without the usual Emo flavor attached to most bands. I highly recommend them, you can find their page of Facebook.


	7. The Truth

Tatsuki jerked when she felt arms wrapped around her. Memories came in, disorganized and vivid as she tried to fight them off. She was released immediately. The strong voice coming through her haze of sleep as the scent of him cut through the nightmare clinging to her. She relaxed ever so slightly, becoming further aware of her surroundings as she woke. They were in the kimono room, she was resting on Ichigo's lap, the teen holding her as though she were made of china. As though she were precious and fragile.

Tsubaki was sleeping in a corner, curled in on herself like a cat, while Chad kept an eye on the doors. Ishida and Orihime were missing.

"Where are they?"

"Ishida and Orihime? They went into your room next door." Ichigo picked something up from beside him. An energy bar. "You need to eat."

"I can't keep anything down when I go back," she admitted, taking the offering. "I'm going to be going back soon. Back to the real world I mean."

"Have you finished already?" He looked near to desperate. He wanted her to finish, to come home. She could see it in his eyes that he wanted this to end.

"No. I get an hour back every day. Just before dawn." Tatsuki chewed slowly. "Shower, change. Except my...mother? She stopped washing my clothes. She hid everything, left me with those." She waved her hand to explain. But how could one explain that their mother was in fact their sister? Remembered from a past echoed fully by the present. The face of her step father and her coach were one in the same. The same soul come to tear her apart. Tatsuki didn't want to imagine her mother might know this to be true. She still wanted to believe her sister was a good person.

"Then I'll head back with you instead of them." Ichigo adjusted her kimono. Pulling it shut by her neck before his hand came to rest on her bicep. "It only takes a few minutes to get to my house."

"It doesn't work like that," Tatsuki shook her head.

"Has anyone done it before?"

No. None had successfully reclaimed their maiden except for the consort.

"Nergal did."

"Who's he?" Ichigo rest his chin atop her head. "If I'm going to be serving them with you, I should probably know who they are."

For the first time in a long time, Tatsuki was the one with the power between them. A very long time. And not just the physical power or emotional power, but the one with the knowledge of the world they were in. He was fin with it. Waiting for her after he'd told her everything he could, never mentioning the petite shinigami by name or speaking of the more controversial situations with the women in his life. Not once.

"He's God's consort. When Ereskigal took on the duty of cleansing and guarding the dead, she couldn't rejoin the heavens. Her wings broke when she crawled into the earth and she spent so much time organizing the underworld, that the sunlight began to burn her. So she stayed beneath the earth, and continued her duty." She took the offered water; she had no real choice when it kept approaching. "One day, the gods held a feast, and Our Lady sent an emissary in her place. When her servant entered, all rose to bow except for one. Nergal."

"He wasn't even paying attention was he?" Ichigo asked, smiling faintly.

"Probably not. But, the Sky King was so upset by Nergal's actions, that he sent the god down into the underworld to apologize to her in person. He worried that Ereskigal would unleash the dead upon the earth and he was upset that Nergal wouldn't rise for the royal family.

"So he came down to apologize, though he was warned before he did. Eat not of the food, drink not of the wine, take not the pleasure."

"So he did," Ichigo nodded as she took a sip. "And then they fell in love?"

"No." Tatsuki shook her head. "He left before the seventh day, so their union wasn't complete. No one ever found out why he left, but he did. By the time he reached the palace above, God woke up. She saw that he'd left her, but she didn't fall into despair, instead, she very calmly sent a message to her brothers."

"She was going to unleash hell wasn't she?"

"Yes, and by the second week, the gods were panicking. And Nergal went back down, laughing the whole way." Tatsuki looked over at the disc of obsidian sitting before her. Clean, unscathed and ready for engraving. "He realized that while God occasionally overreacted, he loved her. So he took her to bed, and within seven days, he became her consort. God of pestilence and Famine."

"Usually goes along with death." Ichigo adjusted his body, causing her to respond in kind. "The way a protector goes with a moon maiden."

"Shut up." She couldn't help the blush or the light smile. He was the only one who knew her name, the only one who hadn't assumed her name meant dragon spirit because his didn't mean strawberry.

"Was Nergal bound to the underworld?" He was trying to make her eat again. If she tried to eat more she would be ill, this was a fact.

"No. He could come and go as he pleased. Eventually he became one of her emissaries, and it is through him the priestesses were brought to earth. One of their daughters for each of the Gates."

Tsubaki came over to them, eyes flickering between clarity and madness. Her soul was becoming weaker, each of them could feel it. Orihime was walking beside her, carrying a a small clay jar in her hands, as well as a set of steel chisels. Tatsuki could see the doll hanging from her waist. Blue eyed and smiling at her, dressed in fresh robes and waiting to join them in the real world.

"Alright then, let her go now, she needs to do this." Tsubaki waved Ichigo off, flicking ink at him when he didn't move fat enough. "Ennug or no, this is a priestess's duty."

The wood was cold beneath her toes, hard and worn from bare feet and dropped items. Bold and warm in this land of dusk. She hadn't realized how cold it was until she'd moved from Ichigo's lap. How separate and far from herself and life it was. The pulse beneath her feet was softer, slower to the point each thump of God's heart nearly surprised her. It brought her back from her net of safety and into the world she'd created. Centuries of heartache and pain had built up, combined betrayal of those closest. She wouldn't have a hollow. She'd unleashed Shizukami on the world. The sorrow of the world would feed it, the village would grow and spill across the land. There was no hollow to compare to her pain.

A warm hand, callused from a sword, wrapped around her own, dampening down the thoughts of hurt.

To wallow in pain would only make it worse. A destructive cycle. Her anger was eased, her heart on the mend. There was no reason to feel insulted.

Tsubaki was staring at her with a knowing expression. The elder moved the parchment onto the table, handing the obsidian mirror off to Orihime beforehand. The parchment was filled, decorated with holly leaves and lilies, the leaves of the Higanbana joining the blossoms for the first time. A pattern of scales had popped in at some point, the serpent twining in between the reeds they'd painted together.

"You'll have to let her hand go too." Tsubaki was looking at Tatsuki with a very serious expression as she spoke. "The rage will come. The pain and the fear. You are the only one who can dispel such thoughts. If you don't, they will be reflected into the world."

Tsubaki reclaimed the disc form Orihime, spilling the contents of the jar onto it as she chanted and passed the mirror to Tatsuki. Indigo blue and lustful red rose from the ink of the parchment when Tatsuki touched the mirror. Sparking at first, fizzling into life as Tsubaki's voice spread across the air, the ink began to flare and pop against the parchment. When the designs gained a steady glow, burning the air itself, Tatsuki lowered the mirror onto the circle of light. Warm at first, it burned into the stone, radiating into Tatsuki's skin and flesh and bone. But hot and cold are oft mistaken. The cold of fear and pain was burning into her skin. The black water from before; liquid stone was swallowing her up and dragging her down. Her heart echoed in her head, so fast it seemed to slow time, the cold burn increasing as it climbed up her arms.

There was nothing except for her and the tears she'd shed. Lifetimes of pain were swallowing her up. Memories came fleeting and fast. The twin souls, twin guardians of the Giris, always cycling around each other, reminding one another of their duty to God. The chanting of Tsubaki was the chant of Mutsuki, of Tsuko, of Hazuki. Her pain was that of Rangetsu, of Mizuki, of Tsuki. The pain of That One hurting her and the pain of Him leaving her. Over and again he left her. Over and again, he fought for the same princess against the same foe. His friends always following him, leaving her alone with that one.

Why should she take him? He was going to keep leaving. Even if he stayed beside her this time, he would just leave again. He'd ignore her out of guilt, turn his back on her duty for his own. He'd remain oblivious to her spirit cracking.

He'd come back though. Her one had come back to her. Back to Tatsuki, because he was Ichigo and things were different. She wasn't a witch anymore. He knew. He vowed to her, not because of devotion to God or duty, but because he loved her.

The cold began to prick at her eyes, began to pry her eyes open to look and see the truth. He'd left when she started. Let go of her, cast her into the darkness. Left her to the Memory. She would be caged in his arms.

Safe. He was safe, a piece of his soul had followed her into this hell! Stood beside her when the rest of him could not. He was different now. Different from Kenichi, from Takashi and the others.

He would leave her.

She'd knock him on his ass and drag him back.

Her throat was raw and a coppery taste was climbing up her throat, spread across her tongue and her lips. Someone was screaming behind her, the scuffle and rage of Him a distant event as her unfocused gaze slid across the table, across the room and back to center on her mirror. Her journey. It was hers. And He was hers.

Her hands drifted down the stone, fingertips curling around the black stone and bringing it to her chest.

"Stop yelling." It hurt to speak. The taste of blood made her want to choke, but there was nothing left to choke on. "Water?"

A softer hand offered it to her, the shouting had stopped and the steady beat of her heart fell in time with her mirror. Three echoes, four when Ichigo freed himself to sit beside her. He would come back. Always.

"I'm fine," she breathed, trying to bat his hand away. "We have to go."

She looked around herself for her gun. She could feel Tsubaki starting to break. She could hear the cracking in her soul, how could they not hear it as well? Where? Where was it? Her fingers closed around cold steel as Tsubaki rose.

Tensa liked her.

Tsubaki's face was open mouthed, blackened eyes bleeding back to soft gray. The madness bleeding away as brown blood slid down the blade in globs. Tatsuki could feel Tsubaki's magic bleeding into her as the rotting liquid hit her skin. She could feel it changing, reverting to the crimson life and soaking into her clothes and skin. Indigo light sparked from each mass as it melted, combining with Tatsuki's until there was nothing left of Tsubaki's magic at all.

"Three years," Tsubaki smiled. She fell, body turning to so much ash as she hit the ground; the kimono were covered in soot, the floorboards turning and curling as the power faded from the room. Thick smoke began to seep up from the floor boards, flickering not with cinders or flame, but with the static energy of crimson and indigo.

A single camilla hair pin rest in the pile of ash. Glinting and clean despite the ever worsening world around them.

The sword was taken from her grasp by Ichigo as she leaned forward to claim the pin. A fresh box of ammunition beneath, something was different about them though, they were lighter, but she knew instinctively they would deal more damage. The glinting magic on each bullet was enough proof.

She looked down once more to find her gun, grabbing it from beneath the table and handing the belt off to someone else. The blade from before was resting just behind it before she pulled the kodachi into the folds of her clothing. It hid itself with her crimson kimono, holding steady to the silk with Tatsuki's new magic. For a moment, she worried about her appearance; the black of Ichigo's coat sealed itself around her, leaving her legs free as it covered most of her torso. The static left from the magic she'd gained was good for something. She pulled her kimono up higher, though the sleeves continued to fall down her arms as she moved, fluttering crimson mixing with black and white and still more red.

"Tatsuki, you're still out of it."

"She's coming," she whispered. She rose on unsteady legs, feeling her strength return slowly. Steady in it's pulse. The forging of the mirror had drained her, the influx of Tsubaki had nearly drowned her. "Tsubaki's not keeping her out anymore."

Ichigo's arms wrapped under her knees and along her back, lifting her out of the decaying room. It was embarrassing to have him carry her again, especially to this mockery of her room. Decrepit and cold, filled with dread and peeling paint. Ishida ducked out of her bedroom window first, followed by Orihime. The sunny girl offered her hand to Tatsuki. When she accepted her hand, the familiar scent of clean linen combined with the feel of her best friends hand. Things weren't perfect, not for any of them. But they were trying.

"Thank you," Tatsuki nodded to the auburn haired girl. Ichigo climbed out behind her.

"I couldn't not." Orihime's words meant so much more. Chad was the last out, punching the wall and blocking Memory for a time. "Let's go to the mall when we're done. Maybe we can find those earrings."

"Maybe," Tatsuki nodded. "Maybe they'll have two pairs."

The tittering of Memory was coming from within the house, they could hear it now, entering Tatsuki's room before a bone splitting shriek echoed from behind the pile of rubble. The house shook as she slammed her form against the wall, once, twice, before her growls could be heard leaving the room. Sickly cold was drifting away from them, moving through the house so strong they could all feel it.

"Dawn is coming," Tatsuki hummed as they walked along the roof of the manor. "I'm going to go back soon. Only for an hour." She could feel the magic fading. Releasing her as God's power waned.

"Can we go back together?" Orihime asked.

"No. It's one thing to meet in a dream, another to meet in the real world. I could pick up your fears." Tatsuki dropped down to the roof of a walkway, beginning to trek across the tiled path. The red clay was a dingy brown, matching the old blood that had come from Tsubaki's chest. She could feel something clinging to the bottom of the walkway, three of them, waiting hungrily for her to pass. She cocked her gun, though she didn't raise it.

"I saw you disappear the last time." Ichigo was following the closest out of them all. She could feel the creatures moving around beneath her feet, moving around her form towards those following her. She could the momentum building behind them as they prepared to swing onto their prey.

Three of them came with massive club-like arms as gaping red mouths oozed viscous fluid. Her aim was getting much better. A single shot to each of their mouths, aimed at a round, opalescent sphere, had the three of them exploding into clouds of ash. The clatter of her bounty onto the roof sounded out, one item bouncing off of Ishida's head before it landed. She made to push her way through them, only to see they were being passed up to her.

"Your aim is very good." Ishida was rubbing his head where he'd been hit.

"Thank you." He'd been hit with a small key, iron and cold, it bore the mark of Giris. The butterfly. The next item was passed to her by Chad. A silver coin bearing the likeness of a strange man. A man she'd seen before, though where and when she wasn't entirely sure. "Does this look familiar to you?"

Ichigo leaned over to look at it. His fingers brushed hers as he took it from her grasp, exchanging it for the scroll Orihime had passed forward.

"It looks like Ulquiora." Ichigo held it out to Orihime, she'd been in constant contact with him for nearly a month. He turned back to Tatsuki. "He almost killed you back in November, before we all left."

"His partner killed my teammates," Tatsuki nodded slowly as she started to climb down the rose trellis. The mass of memories in her mind had created a chaotic mess. Remembering one thing was not so easy. Remembering a person was equally difficult, two sets of eyes on the same soul, behaviors overlapping with features and names. "He tried to burn one of the servant houses down."

"There have been a lot of fires in your life, haven't there?" Ishida's question was smartassed, teasing in a deadpan, sarcastic way. He was climbing down after her, keeping his eyes open across the garden.

"Some few," Tatsuki agreed. Ichigo had jumped halfway down the laddered wood, landing beside her. Orihime came down next, her fae flitting around like some sort of mockery. Too bright, to shining and full of life. She waved her hand when Orihime tried to return the coin. "No, I'm leaving, I can feel it."

"We should find a place to meet then." Chad's low voice was echoing from the roof. He was the last to come down, always taking the role of defender. The last time she'd worn her hair in public, he'd kept her from getting into a fistfight, defending her from an aggressive businessman who didn't seem to understand she had the right of way.

"Right here." Tatsuki started to unfurl the scroll as she felt herself transfer over. "See you at sunset."

"No."

She was very suddenly aware of Ichigo's hand taking her own. Even as she was pulled into the real world, she could feel him following along. She saw his form remain steady as the world shifted around them, fading and popping into color and life. The warmth of his skin remained a steady constant as the air grew warmer and more humid. Crisp and full of life and sound and them.

"You followed me. Again."

The surprise in her voice seemed to have activated his annoyance.

"Of course I did. I told you I would."

"You've told me a lot of things," she huffed back, pulling her hand from his and crossing her arms in front of her. "Doesn't mean they're all true."

"Well this is!" He moved closer to her, putting his hands on her shoulders and looking at her. "I'm not letting you go in there alone ever again. Or anywhere."

"You're not following me into the bathroom." She had to laugh at the look on his face. "Or into the locker rooms. Or-"

"Obviously not those places," he scoffed, pulling her into his chest. "I meant what I said. No more lies. No more secrets. You're not supposed to lie to the people you love."

"No." They stayed like that a moment longer before he released her. Her arms had wrapped themselves around his waist, face burrowed into the bandages covering his chest. His spiritual clothing had followed them through. The goddess had decreed him as one of her own, allowed him through with the priestess, protecting her as was his duty.

He called out when she started for the pond rather than the back door.

"What the heck are you doing?" he tried to pull her out.

"There's something in here." She pulled out of his reach, watching the water and waiting for the sediment to settle. The fish had fled, golden scales drawing her eyes away from where she knew something existed. "I saw it glimmer in the other garden, but it faded."

Ichigo watched the water with her, pointing to a single area where the fish had refused to swim away. As she reached for the spot, the fish grew aggressive, biting at her and trying to block her searching hand. One seemed to dart around the pond, zipping through the water between her ankles and slamming into her.

"Here, get out," Ichigo reached for her once more. "I'll find a net while you go shower."

"Fine. I need to throw this in the dryer."

He followed her into the house, the warm glow of the lights and low hum of the heater the only sounds within. The photographs lining the walls only served to hurt her. Did her mother even know? Did she know that the girl she loved was the sister she hated? What would happen if she found out? Did it really matter when her mother had been sacrificing girls for centuries? Out of sheer selfishness and greed? The Forbidden Rite had been carried out too long.

She paused in her steps, taking the pictures from the walls. All of them, framed and not, birthdays, festivals, even tournament photos. Ichigo didn't speak, he simply reached higher, taking down the images she couldn't reach. She handed the frames to him before they hit her room, looking once more for something to cover her. All the drawers, the closet, the wardrobe.

"Go find the net." She didn't want to look at the garments on the bed. "Put the pictures...somewhere."

"I'll call before I come up the stairs." He leaned closer, placing his lips against her forehead before turning to leave.

She could feel the pressure of his lips after he'd gone. Letting out a breath, she turned to see what had been left to her. Shorts rest to one side, chocolate pinstripes on black and much shorter than she would have liked, they were certainly better than Tatsuki expected. Her train of thought was broken by the other two pieces. The top was wrinkled from time spent in a trunk or a box, nearly sheer cotton with a low neck and cap sleeves, it covered her bust and little else. The black vest only seemed to highlight the area, the cloth running under her bust and peaking up between for a moment. Something else she'd bought on a whim, ideas floating around her head about when she'd wear it and where. And who she'd wear it around. Only one part of her fantasy had fallen into place.

~!~

"Ah, not another freeloader?" Jinta was staring at their newest guest with annoyance and wariness. "It's bad enough we have the girl who thinks she's dead."

Urahara paid the young man no mind, instead pouring tea for their guest. Until Arisawa-san came to claim him, he was to be guarded at all times, powers limited until the blue haired arrancar could barely move. His guards weren't particularly civil at the moment, he doubted many of them were, and Urahara was certainly not going to upset the uncle of his favorite pupil's girlfriend...

He set the teapot down, wondering if the situation could get anymore confusing.

"Welcome back to the human world, Arisawa-san." The shopkeeper offered a plate of biscuits to the man.

"I didn't think my next trip would bring me here." Grimmjow aka Tsume leaned back on his hands, staring into the depths of his tea. "Especially not to tell some sandal wearing, clog man about The Cleansing."

Urahara raised his cup as he waited for the spirit to continue.

"Most of what I can tell you is second hand," Tsume admitted. "Boys, they're useless to the clan. You have to prove you're important early. That you're strong and the family would benefit from having you around." Tsume took a sip of his tea. "It doesn't happen often."

Tsuki had decided to keep him. She wanted a playmate, someone to protect her and someone she could protect as well. The arrancar wouldn't come out and say it as such, but it was the truth of the matter. She'd use him as a shield against their father as often as she could and that was the lingering need for strength that burned hot inside of him. The need to prove that he needn't die.

"When the priestess's body enters The Sleep, she's vulnerable. She depends on those around her to keep her safe. Tsuki had seen Yuuko kill our aunt, she'd been on her way to tend the body." Grimmjow looked up at him, the jaw bone missing and eyes full of a familiar fire. "Tsubaki was mad, childish, but she was never cruel. Not like my father and my eldest sister."

"Why would your father encourage such behavior?" Urahara wanted to know. A family didn't just decide to destroy itself.

"He didn't know what he was getting into when he married my mother. He thought his status as husband would give him power. He'd married one of the most powerful families in the region, why shouldn't he be given respect?"

"But boys are useless," Urahara nodded. Grimmjow pointed at him and nodded. "So Yuuko was passed up for the role of priestess?"

"She's not an Arisawa. Not by birth. The magic runs through the blood."

Grimmjow had finally taken one of the biscuits and Urahara could see his guards listening intently to the tale he told. Fresh gossip was hard to come by in Soul Society, especially gossip about a family of spiritualists as old as the Arisawa clan.

"My father tried to raise her to power once he figured out what was going on. I can remember thinking they were strange when I was young. I'd hide behind my mother's kimono or in Tsuki's apron when they came around. It pissed the old man off, but they didn't love each other like family." He shook his head, brow furrowed. "It didn't make sense until I was older, but they were lovers. He was using her and torturing my sister. I don't' know why. I'll never know why, but I saw Yuuko kill my sister."

There was silence between them. Tsume's face was flicking in with Grimmjow's, a strange mixed being.

"When she died, there wasn't anyone to take her place. Shizukami started to spill out from God's Salver, and my mother ordered the cleansing. My father was ordered to kill every remaining member of the family. Five cousins, two aunts, even Yuuko just to be safe. Mother took her life first, right on top of Tsuki-chan."

"But you father didn't kill Yuuko."

"Or me. I was supposed to stay alive until I fathered a girl. I was just a reset button. Because Yuuko kept living, I couldn't father any girls. Only sons." Tsume leaned forward and poured himself another cup. "Something must have happened though. My first time in the human world, I could feel Tsuki, and then I saw Kurosaki's girlfriend. I fucking hate that guy."

"I wonder what did happen," Urahara hummed. He didn't want to say anything for or against Ichigo, not when the normally combative spirit was being rather cooperative for once.

"Yuuko had to have gone into the hospital at some point," Grimmjow snorted. "Flatlined, had a heart attack, I dunno, but it was enough time for one of my descendants to knock someone up with a girl."

Tatsuki was her own reincarnation And the descendant of her brother. And dating said brother's greatest rival/enemy. It didn't hurt that her sister was feeding the woman she'd killed under the belief it was her adopted child who really turned out to be her many times great niece. Why yes, yes this family could in fact be more confusing.

"She's probably found the rest of her soul by now." Tsume popped another biscuit into his mouth. "Might even have her memories. If that's the case then she might be having trouble telling the difference between Kurosaki and Kenichi."

Urahara let out a sigh, resigning himself to pen and paper to try and figure the Arisawa family out. Even the guards by his door and his assistants looked lost.

~!~

Tatsuki came down the stairs just as Ichigo was heading up. A squelching sound was coming from his shoes and there was a good deal of mud on him combining with the smell of pond and fish. It made her smile a bit to see that he'd done something so silly for her. Just as she was staring at him, she could feel his eyes on her. She could see them jerking back up to look at her face. She could see his hands gripping themselves. She could hear him berating himself. The echoing stone by her ear was chattering away, spilling his secrets to her, revealing his desires and the wrongness he felt in noticing the red of her bra beneath the shirt she wore. He wasn't like Katashi or Yamata though. He didn't want her to feel stronger, he didn't want her because he wanted to hurt her.

"Go take a shower," she told him. "I'm going to run this down."

He began to climb the stairs, nodding at her before he passed.

"Ichigo." She heard him pause. "You shouldn't be ashamed. Of your thoughts." She could hear him inhale and turned to see him facing her. "They aren't dirty, not like his were."

"I still shouldn't be," Ichigo paused in his sentence. Tatsuki could see the flicker of the pendant he wore around his neck. He could hear the words she couldn't say. His thoughts made her feel precious, cherished, worthy of love.

"Go shower. We only have a half hour left."

He nodded. Both turned away, she to dry their clothes and he to rid himself of the living muck that made the koi pond. He wouldn't have anything else to wear though. Even now he was garbed in nothing save his black robes. She didn't want to go up there and enter the bathroom though. She wasn't ready for that.

She felt her goddess in the living room. The deep and ancient darkness that was Her. The cool, calm, safety of night was spreading through the house. Through the floor boards and around Tatsuki's form.

God was sitting in her mother's favorite chair again. Throne-like, it didn't seem enough for the goddess, and yet it was all the more because of it. The glitter of her jewels bounced light across the room, indigo spots all across the walls and the floor. She was watching the window, resting her chin upon her fist as she looked at that she could no longer have. Tatsuki stood still, waiting for the woman to speak.

"You have one more night."

Tatsuki nodded.

"You two have always been my favorites. You and your sister." She spoke not of Yuuko, but of Tsubaki, of her soul's twin. Her smile was maternal, her hand reaching out to cup Tatsuki's cheek. It was exquisite. Full of love and raw emotion and knowing. "You are wise. You are strong too. That is what makes you so different than you were before. You are grown now, I could no have chosen a truer consort."

The thump of Ichigo's feet signaled his arrival. He'd found clothes somehow. The black button up had it's sleeves rolled up, the skin of his chest exposed from an undone button. Plain black pants were hanging low on his hips, a belt hanging from his hand. He'd realized they weren't alone, throwing clothes on and dashing down. Inpatient as always, Tatsuki half expected him to start demanding and shouting. He didn't shout, and didn't quite demand. But he did act as brashly as he always had.

"You're naked!"

Tatsuki had to laugh, a snort escaping her as she saw him blushing, eyes fixed on the wall and body tense.

"Mere moments ago you could think of nothing other than worshiping your beloved, and yet now you cannot bear to look upon you god?" Ereskigal was amused. "You are a strange one. Embarrassed by the very thought of a nude female, turning away all those that came in between."

Tatsuki furrowed her brows. Her mind flitted to more than one of the shinigami women.

"Did Rukia-"

"No!" Ichigo shook his head. "God no. Er..." He looked at the smiling God in the living room before turning back to Tatsuki. "No. I, she tried, I think, maybe, but she isn't you."

Ereskigal laughed, deep and throaty, jewelry tinkling together as she rose from her seat. Slow and serpentine, she made her way closer to the two of them, pulling a feathered cloak from the back of the chair as she moved. The door Ichigo had entered through only moments before had turned into a portal to the underworld. Not Shizukami, not Seireitei or Hueco Mundo, ut the true underworld. The place everyone went in the end. As Ereskigal passed them, her fingers grazed the edge of Zangetsu; a trail of luminescent blood left behind. She paused at the doorway to her home.

"Now go. Finish your duties."

~!~

Orihime followed the others into Urahara Shoten, exhausted from their battle. When Tatsuki had left with Ichigo, the world had morphed even further. Nightmares had come into the forefront, rivers rushing down hallways, icy cold and swallowing everything in their path. Tatsuki had warned them that meeting in the real world would combine their nightmares. The nightmare of his mother's death had combined with Tatsuki's loss, Tsuki's abuse, and Ichigo's feelings of Tatsuki being taken away from him. So many female figures had been trapped, screaming just beyond their reach, tortured by unknown figures...

The man in white had disappeared. In his place silvery-white humanoids had taken to pouncing on them, swaying and jerking as they moved. The Swingers became more aggressive, swarming in groups of three and four and targeting a single person amongst them at anytime. Always targeting the first person to make a sound.

Orihime was tired. She barely noticed Grimmjow sitting at the table across from Urahara, speaking quietly to the young woman who insisted she was dead. She barely noticed walking over Jinta and she was fairly certain Chad ran into a wall. She would rest, and then she would bathe, and then she would go back and protect the girl who had done as such so many times in the past.

"They look like shit."

Grimmjow's comment was the last thing she heard as she curled up on a nearby futon and passed out.

"Are they going to die too?"

Urahara felt pity for the young woman sitting at the table with them. She'd come out from the back room, skittish and twitching, and very obviously hungry. She'd jumped when Grimmjow poured her a cup of tea but she'd accepted it gratefully. He'd managed to get some food into her too. Claimed he'd eaten all the time when he was a ghost.

The 'used to be' factor seemed to convince her she might come back to life if she was very good. She started imitating life, trying to polish her skills before she returned from the dead. Why? So she wouldn't die from embarrassment.

"No no." Urahara shook his head, turning to look back at the sleeping teens. They were covered in grime and bruises. When it came to human suffering, spiritual anguish, they had seen more in their short years than many shinigami had. "They've been very busy saving the priestess."

"There's a priestess?" The girl's eyes widened. "I really can come back to life then."

"Not without a name you can't," Tsume scoffed. "All living things need a name. I have two of them."

"Really?"

It was interesting to watch the former arrancar, current bound spirit, and soon to be Arisawa clan member acting so human. Then again, from what he'd said before, the women who served his god were treasures. He was a boy with little more value than the girl sitting next to him. Tools in the clan's game. The rules had been broken though and Tatsuki didn't seem the type to let a thing so silly as gender decide who could and could not make a choice.

"Kisume then."

He really needed to pay more attention to the world and less to the crazy family his student seemed to be marrying into.

"Kisume?" Urahara asked. "Where did you come up with that?"

"Right here of course." For thinking she was dead, she had a little bit of sass. It faded away as quickly as it had come and the girl was back to her shy self. "You've been taking such good care of me, and Tsume-sama is helping me come back to life."

~!~

The shift back into Shizukami was near to violent. Both teens stumbling as they returned to the test. Not only stumbling, but dodging as some new creature swung at them.

Vast leathery wings stretched across the ceiling, trapped in between the wooden rafters, pierced by the charred pine beams. He was hanging from them like a twisted sort of ornament. A whip like tail was wrapped around his form, striking out at them even as it held the creature prisoner, arms and legs bound together by the writhing inky appendage.

"What the...this is yours," Tatsuki accused. Her gun was out, aimed for the body of their attacker. There was a skeletal mask covering the top of his face while the creatures own horns stabbed through the holes and into his mask. The feeling of the creatures own pain, self inflicted and ignorant, was bouncing around in Tatsuki's bones.

"Yeah." Ichigo's sword was in front of him, and he standing nearly in front of her.

"So?" she asked, dodging to the left as he went to the right. "What is it?"

The pained screams of the creature stunned them, shaking the room itself as his wings tore and his body was lowered. The blood was dripping from beneath the mask and into his mouth, pooling out to drip down his chin, down his torso and his legs to the floor.

"That's the guy who kidnapped Orihime." Ichigo hacked at the tail as it harpooned itself in his direction. Tatsuki had taken to firing at the rising creatures on the ground. Imp-like versions of the hanged man, screaming at her and spitting green acid as they crawled from between the floor boards. Some had taken to flying, dive bombing the both of them.

His wings tore once more, sending him closer to the floor, his toes barely skimming the top of the gathered blood beneath him. The flying Spitters had lessened with each shot and sections of twitching tail were scattered up the ground. The man who'd stolen Orihime away was still crying blood, the puddle growing, but the length of tail around his body had tightened. He was trapped in his own misery.

When the final Spitter had been struck down, both of them heard the rip of leather bounce off of the walls as the thump of his body hit the floor. Tatsuki wasn't the first to turn and face him however, not when something was glittering just through the horns of Weeping Man's head. Stuck into the opposite wall, just between two horns; it would disappear as soon as he died.

Just as the Spitters had sent a spray of acid at them, Weeping spewed forth a rain of the corrosive liquid.

"Keep his attention," Tatsuki ducked beneath a flap of twitching wing. She needn't have said as such, his memory was targeting him specifically. The guilt over his actions was his. Weeping had torn an arm free from his binds, a single leg pushing him across the floor towards his prey.

"What are you doing?" Another tail had darted out at Ichigo.

She ducked beneath another flap of wing, gun ready when the Spitter crawled down the decaying leather. The single shot summoned yet more, spooking the creatures away from the darkest corners and towards her. The priestess lifted her arms against them and ran through to the other side, scowling when they followed her through. She couldn't shoot at the swarm of chattering Spitters; a misfire might result in hitting the wrong target. She had a blade though. Pulling the blade from it's sheathe, she need only raise it against the flock.

Words left her mouth in a melody given by Tsubaki. The blade itself remained unchanged, while mirrored images of it spanned in front of her like a wall. The flying creatures became ribbons of ocher, crimson, and black, falling to the floor behind her in a slurry. She remained mostly untouched by the flying bits, her clothes actually undamaged by the attack.

"Tatsuki!"

"Hold on!" she shouted back to Ichigo. He was having trouble, she could hear it. She could feel his dark passenger wanting out. Stepping through the bloody mess at her feet, she pushed her way through to the glinting coin. Her fingers wrapped around the steel, cold to the touch, though warm. A sharp jerk snapped the horns that held it in place and Weeping let out a throat tearing scream.

He was turning towards her now, making Tatsuki slip her kodachi back into the sheathe at her hip and raise her gun instead. Weeping didn't like taking bullets to the face it seemed. His tail, previously occupied with Ichigo, turned on Tatsuki while Weeping went back to spitting on the swordsman. He moved much slower than either living person though. It was fairly simple for Tatsuki to duck around his other side and fire at him again. Ichigo himself didn't have to move, the tail was following her, it's tip splitting to send a jet of acid.

Two more shots to the head and Weeping reared back onto his knees, horns thickening to the point his skull would fracture. The sound of agony shook the walls, summoning another cloud of spitter as the tail began to sway high above them.

Ichigo took on the cloud this time while Tatsuki aimed for the bone shield protecting the heart. One shot, one crack, and he would fall to the ground, horns digging deeper. The swarm would fall away, decimated by Ichigo blade before they started to re-spawn in the background.

"Get behind me," Ichigo called out. The tail had poised above her, pulsing as it prepared to spew.

Tatsuki dashed behind hm as she watched him raise his sword in preparation for attack. She felt the dark passenger rise inside of him. Closer to her. She could feel the heat of the attack he'd used to save her before he even uttered the words. Not so strong as the one he'd used, this was a blue so bright it bordered on white rather than the black crimson that had saved her. This one wasn't Tensa, she could feel the difference in the blade. It seemed, older.

The tail and swarm were destroyed, falling to dust and ash onto the floorboards, mixing with the blood and waste. Weeping raised himself again, his other leg kicking free of it's confines as he rose, hunched over. He was reaching for them, a blind demon calling out to them for help. His horns had pierced through the back of his skull, blood and brain matting hair together as white flecks of bone were caught in the inky web. It fell to the ground in clumps, each morphing into a Spitter, some caught up beneath his feet while others started to rise in the air and scurry across the ground.

She pulled her gun as Weeping rolled his head to the side, his entire body moving in a circle until he was upright. Two shots. Now three cracks decorated his chest, thick bone operating further apart. Weeping lunged forward, a fountain of lime green vomited from his mouth, spraying across the floor and nearly catching the two teens as they split. Again, the beast was unsure which to target, hunching forward once more as his hair fell into Spitter clumps. He settled for Ichigo, meandering over while Tatsuki was forced to draw her blade and cast the echo once more.

Ichigo was forced to dodge the creature. Tatsuki was still on the other side and while he knew he wouldn't hit her, he didn't want to risk it. When she'd cast the spell he could see the change in her. He could feel the magic Tsubaki carried, though it was altered, purified. It felt more like Tatsuki the more she used it.

She ran to the side of Weeping, gun poised as she waited for him to give her the shot.

It only took a small strike. Four sharp shots shattered the chest plate and Weeping's heart fell from his chest to the floor. A final burst of acid left his mouth and fell onto the weakly beating heart. It climbed up Weepings legs burning him away not into ash, but into little sparks of energy.

"We should keep moving before anyone else decides to pop in," he heard her say.

~!~

Yuuko watched with satisfaction as Dr. Ishida carried Tatsuki's body to the alter. He'd tried so desperately to go against her, just like his father, she hoped his son might do the same. It was always so fun watching the look in their eyes as they carried out her wishes, bodies ignoring their owners commands as her magic forced them to do their duty. The look of agony on their faces as they raised the blade against the sacrifice combined with the rage when they discovered they couldn't turn the blade on her instead. Ryuuken had given up quickly, knowing that she was powerful. The good doctor was more rebellious than his father; Uryuu would be a real treat to break.

"We'll go get Unagiya-san next," Yuuko told the doctor simply. "And at nightfall, we'll go claim our final pillar."

The witch ran her hands through Tatsuki's hair. She hadn't wanted to do this to her. She'd really hoped Tatsuki might take her place one day, but her silly friends had taken the sacrifice. It was their fault she had to kill her daughter. The girl who was no more related to the Arisawa clan than Yuuko herself and still managed to take what Yuuko had always wanted. It was their fault. Why hadn't her stepmother just given her the rights? She was the eldest...

Yuuko released Tatsuki's hair and smoothed it down. She didn't want her child to suffer any more. The incident with the coach had been an unknown factor until recently. The idiot Kurosaki boy had been a thorn in her side for almost a year now, hurting her child in a way she didn't deserve.

"Soon dearest. Soon you will sail to the other side, and God will take you into her arms."

The witch kissed her child's forehead before walking away from her. The doctor followed her, furious with her, fighting every step of the way. Let him fight. She would win.

She always won.

~!~

Orihime ran back to the shoten, skidding to a stop when she reached the back room. She'd gone to the hospital to speak with her friend, to set the rag doll next to her so she wouldn't wake up alone. The nurses had given her a pitying look and told her Tatsuki was pulled out this morning by her mother. It had taken running to Tatsuki's room to convince her she was gone. The Arisawa manor had been her next stop; the entire house had been without life. Not even the maid was there, or the gardener.

"Tatsuki's body is gone!"

There was a moment of silence before everyone started to move. Words started being thrown around, the panic over finding her in time combined with the oncoming night.

"Shut up!" Grimmjow was standing now, Kisume looking up at him with a strange adoration. "You guys head off to Tsuki-nee, do your job. I'll head over to the Moon Cave with these guys and try to delay Yuuko."

Orihime nodded, grabbing her bag without argument, pausing only when Tessai offered them a ride in his car.

Yuuko was going to try the Forbidden Rite anyway. She was going to kill yet another priestess, only this time it wasn't a sister she hated. Yuuko-san had always been so kind to Orihime, she'd always tried to make Tatsuki smile no matter what. So why would she do this? Didn't she know Tatsuki would be trapped in Shizukami if her human body died? Or, maybe she didn't care...

"Hime!" She jerked out of her thoughts as Tessai pulled to a stop in front of the manor.

"Thank you," she nodded to the man as she dashed out of the car. They had to make it to the greenhouse. They had to. Tatsuki and Ichigo were supposed to be waiting for them and time had become more of a factor than ever before. This wasn't like Rukia's execution. Execution led to reincarnation, there was no pain afterward, no suffering. Tatsuki's death would nto kill her, it would only trap her again, and while Orihime had wanted Ichigo for many years...

She feared what he might become should Tatsuki die.

She feared what Tatsuki might do if someone tried to take Ichigo away from her. She'd seen first hand the rage and pain caused by his leaving and the cold fury upon Ichigo's face when he learned Tatsuki was in danger.

She could feel the pull of Tatsuki's god as the world transferred over, taking them from the soft twilight of the living world to the harsh gloom of Shizukami. The changed world. They'd made it to the garden just outside of the conservatory, the ground shifting and jerking beneath their feet. Pile of hot sand and ask rose from deadened grass while pools of black water formed in between them. The trees crystallized and charred equally as Shizukami claimed the earth.

The sand was not empty. Something was burrowed beneath it, the sand raising up around it as it moved, targeting the three of them in hunger. Dodging was not so simple in these piles of sand, not when the black water would try to drown you. Ishida had been caught in such liquid last night and she'd nearly lost him to this damnable place. She would have broke in this place.

The burrowing creature separated into three smaller beasts when the humans split apart. The sand shooting into the air as they chased them down. The hunger rolled off of them, out across the land. She could feel that hunger drawing others in. The creepers and the swingers and those silvery hollow type creatures. The sand burrowers finally rose, familiar masks covering their faces as they reared up. They weren't as powerful as the other beasts they'd fought against, Orihime knew that when Tsubaki tore through the one targeting her, but she heard Chad's preparing to bellow before he took it out. Preparing to summon more creatures like the arrancar. Had Ichigo felt guilt over his actions into Hueco Mundo? Or had he felt guilt leaving Nel and her fraccion behind?

The three of them dashed into the safety of the greenhouse, slipping in the sand and stumbling over hidden lumps of charcoal. It was calm within the glass house, and surprisingly safe.

She only hoped Ichigo and Tatsuki would make it soon.

Tatsuki moved silently through the halls of her home, gun poised to fire while Ichigo kept his kitchen knife sheathed on his back. He never seemed to have trouble swinging it, despite the lack of space within the manor halls. He hadn't left her. Hadn't pushed her once. He was fine with her not speaking to him, but she could hear that he was concerned. He'd said the words...why hadn't she? The simple answer was doubt. She wasn't sure if she could trust him yet. If he left her after this, decided it was too much, she didn't know that she could look at him again. She'd never thought herself to be the jealous type or the possessive type. She'd always considered herself to be quite considerate of other people, the times she'd stepped away when Rukia bustled into the room, taking his attention.

"You're projecting."

She turned to face him, opening her mouth slightly before closing it once more.

"Oh." If it wasn't for the monster detector built in to those stupid stones, she would have taken hers off long ago. Shizukami was turning her focus to the negative side of things. When they'd been in the real world, she'd never doubted he'd be there, behind her, in front of her, catching her.

"This place is getting to me," she confessed. "It wasn't before, not really. But now, I'm having a hard time trusting while we're in this place."

"I know." Ichigo moved to stand behind her; he'd been watching her back since they came back. "I keep expecting you to disappear. To fade away without me."

"I won't." She took a deep breath. "Ichigo, I don't think I can let you go. I'm afraid of what I might do if you tried to leave and...I feel crazy right now!"

His arms wrapped around her once more. She could smell his skin, the steel of Zangetsu and the sweat of his brow. It was safe here. In his arms. The darkness couldn't reach her and she knew that so long as he was right there, no one could get to her. Yamata couldn't come back and Memory was a faint idea.

"I know."

"No," she whispered against his chest. "No, you don't. You don't know how much I want to kill Rukia right now. Or how much I want to make everyone hurt like I was." She looked up at him, watching as his eyes flickered yellow orange. "It's not so bad when it's just us. I don't even think about it in the real world."

"Then I'll get you out." The dark passenger was blinking at her from within his eyes. His inner monster. She could feel him agreeing. "We'll take a break from everyone, go stay at Shiba Inn for a week. Just the two of us."

"I think that's why I love you," she admitted. "You're not scared of my crazy."

"Yes I am," Ichigo smirked. "I'm not smart enough to run away from you."

She couldn't help but laugh. She couldn't help kissing him either. Soft and chaste, it was a spark of light in the world. The spark that brought fire back to the night and filled the cold solitude with love. There was him. There was her. There was light between them and around them and when she opened her eyes, she could see it in his eyes.

"Let's get out of here," Ichigo smiled at her.

"Yeah. A week at an inn sounds perfect."

~!~

Rukia followed along with Grimmjow. She might not be able to help Ichigo and the others inside of Shizukami, but she could certainly stop a woman from murdering Ichigo's friend. Although the look in his eyes whenever he was away from Tatsuki reminded Rukia of her brother. Every year on the anniversary of her sister's death, or on her birthday, or on the day they'd met, Byakuya would get a look in his eyes. Loving regret. The faintest smile would flicker in his eyes as he watched her grave. When Ichigo had sat with them, or sat at Tatsuki's bedside, she'd seen the same thing.

The things he did for the people he cared about.

"Do you know where she's going to carry this out?" She asked her companion. Grimmjow was leading her and two others to a supposed shrine. Faintly, she wondered if they were calling him Tsume now.

"Of course I do." The blue haired arrancar kept his eyes focused ahead of them. "She made me build the damn thing for her when I was fifteen."

His voice was bitter. Was this what had caused him to become a hollow in the first place? His sister's betrayal and his father's madness? It was enough to send anyone into madness and despair. Watching as the people you were supposed to trust killed those you loved over. Being forced to aid in the murder of innocent girls. And then, knowing that your sister, the only person who valued you as a person, was trapped in the depths of hell. Rukia was hardly surprised that Tsume 'Grimmjow' Arisawa had turned into the creature he was today.

"Will we be able to enter?" One of the guards was the one to ask the question. Kenta something or other.

"Maybe not," Grimmjow admitted. "But if we make enough noise, Yuuko will come to find out what it is. She's always liked to gloat whenever she can."

Rukia nodded.

~!~!~

Ennug – the divine guardian and consort of the priestess.

Giris – Butterfly. Butterflies represent rebirth and transformation. The gift of Rebirth is the gift given to all Arisawa priestess.

So, in explanation of Tatsuki' name, I (and therefore her birth parents) used Tara for the Ta part of her name. Tara is a Buddhist representation of the divine woman. Ta + Tsuki = moon maiden. Before she was given the name Tara, she was known as Yeshe Dawa, "Moon of Primordial Awareness". Ereskigal is a very primal/primordial goddess. Wikipedia actually has a pretty good article about Tara if any of you want to go check her out.

Also, using Kanji, Tatsuki's name can be spelled to mean "Lonely Moon", Ta meaning lonesome and well as great(large/huge). That comes in during the next fic though. I'm thinking about a direct crossover between Fatal Frame 4 and Bleach in which Tatsuki contracts Getsuuyuu Syndrome...feedback is always welcome.

Kisume's name came entirely by accident, lol. I did a Google search of her new name and found a character from a video game, it turned out to be a shy bucket-dwelling demon who likes to live in caves and dark places. Booyaka!

Also, side note regarding Tatsuki's increase in cup size. One of my male friends didn't understand how she could go from flat chested to suddenly not. Please see the following video. Also she's just funny as hell and even if you know about this, it will make you laugh.

jennamarblesblog videos / some - idiothow - sports - bras - work

R&R


	8. The Rebirth

Tatsuki slid through the mix of ash and waste down onto the roof of the conservatory. Ichigo was right behind her, blade covered in the mucus and pus of the creature they'd just destroyed. They'd started popping out from holes in the roof, forms covered by the ash falling from the sky. Neither could claim to know what they were, or who was responsible for them. It was hard to theorize when you were trying to hurry to your friends. Both had felt them arrive as they fought against two of the Swingers and a worm-like beast. They would have gone sooner had the fight not been followed up by another.

Tatsuki wiped the ash from the glass before lifting the pane from the frame; she could see the others moving around inside of the room. Her earlier confession was still echoing in their minds, but now, Ichigo was talking about their vacation at Shiba. It was calming, even as they slid through puddles of waste and blood, even as the burning ash fell from the sky and Spitters burned their flesh. It distracted her from the twisting in her gut that he might actually want a healing woman.

She was forced to duck back when a bright blue arrow nearly took her head off.

"Watch what the hell you're doing!" Tatsuki shouted down at them.

"Tatsuki?" Orihime's voice floated up. It was full of fear. "We need to hurry, something terrible is happening in the real world!"

Tatsuki looked back in to see Chad and Ishida ready to catch her. When a rustle sounded from beneath the shingles, she took the jump. They were decent enough at catching people but she Knew her stupid...boyfriend, was going to gt himself killed if he kept jumping around like a damn flea. She was being dragged along before she could ask anyone what was going on. Down the long staircase, corkscrewing into the earth and closer to her final exam. She could feel the chill of the gate as they went down. The feeling of death growing stagnant and thick. It pushed against her chest, against all of them, at still they were demanding she run.

"Slow down," she tried to free herself. She didn't know if she was ready yet and here they were sending her to her death. "What is going on?"

"Your mother found a proxy for the Forbidden Rite," Ishida told her. His voice was serious, cold almost. "We need to hurry in case Tsume can't stop her in time."

There was no proxy for the rite. None. Yuuko hadn't understood that the first time either. They didn't need to hurry her along this time; Tatsuki was running down the stairway as the memories came flooding in. As her feelings, as Tatsuki, began to shake with fear and heartache. Her mommy was going to kill her.

"Proxy?" Ichigo asked from the back.

"Yuuko has decided to sacrifice Tatsuki instead," Chad answered. The lantern was in his hand, lit and casting an eerie glow upon the walls around them. "She hopes that sending a tortured priestess will appease God."

The sound of shattering glass and the roar of many creatures echoed down from the conservatory.

The antechamber was waiting, Orihime hurrying to a brass panel by a demonic gate. A great, gaping maw awaited them, stone teeth sharpened to points. Liquid dripped from the stone, rust and talc encouraging nothing but fear of the gateway. This was not her gate. This was a gate long forgotten, a gate she'd never seen, but knew to rest beneath the manor in her own world. Orihime was calling Tatsuki over, calling for the key. Something was wrong though. She'd forgotten a part of the rite, a tool she needed to defeat the memory.

"Coins!"

Ichigo had called out to her, staring at an odd part of the wall. The diamond light was bouncing off of the cold stone to reveal a reliquary. Another brass panel was waiting silent inside. The part she was missing lay further back still. She walked away from Orihime, pulling the yet unused scroll from her pocket. She could feel everyone's eyes on her back as she read through the puzzle. Orihime was making worried sounds while Ishida's bow was pointed at the stairwell they'd come down.

"Ichigo." He came before she had to wave him over. "What does this mean?"

"Which part?" he took the scroll in hand.

"Exactly." She pulled the two coins from her pocket and pressed them into his hand. "Hime, the other coin, the one that looks like Weeping." She may not have understood who weeping was, but she brought the coin out from her bag and handed it over. "I mean, I get that they go in a certain order, but..."

Ichigo nodded as he read through the arcane instructions. The three coins lay in front of them. Weeping, their first. The koi pond was next, two black fish, swimming around in a circle. And finally, the one she'd claimed form Weeping himself. An angel chained.

"Okay, uhm..." Ichigo furrowed his brows. "Ishida!"

Tatsuki pulled her gun when the quincy joined them, focusing on the door while the boys figured the whole thing out. She could hear snippets of their conversation. Demons and accession, destroying nature, changing the world. It didn't make any sense to her. The gun in her hand made sense. Her duty made sense. She could hear them switching off now. Ichigo came to stand in front of her, closer tot he stairs while Orihime joined Ishida.

"It has something to do with Orihime," Ichigo told her.

Zangetsu was held in front of him, resting on the earth so as not to waste energy. He was in his human body, not his spirit form; she'd seen his body shaking from exhaustion as they traveled through Shizukami. The spirit was willing, but his flesh was weak. She glanced over to see Orihime and Ishida setting the final coin into place. She could see the soft glow running through the brass and into the stone.

"Arisawa, I believe you need to do something." Ishida came over to take her place. Orihime was waiting beside the coin shrine, chewing her lip and glancing back and forth between Tatsuki and the gate.

"Okay," Tatsuki hummed. She looked down at the brass panel, she looked at the coins, titled as needed and place in their slots. She looked at the back wall of the shrine and the sides. "Shit."

"I'm scared." Orihime's soft voice cut into her search. "I'm scared that I'm going to fail you, and I'll never see you again."

"Hime..." Tatsuki set her hand upon the alter, jerking it back as something stabbed into her palm. Cradling the hand to her chest, she could see a small barb sticking into the air just below the angel. She could see a droplet of her own living blood traveling down the pin to spread across the angel coin. There were two more. A prick of the finger went to the demon and the fish, a drop of blood for each. As the blood settled, the back panel folded down atop the coins, a crystalline vial shining brightly at them. The light of the sun and the stars was in it. The final piece.

"Without you, I couldn't get this," Tatsuki took it from the alter.

The scream of many beasts echoed louder down the stairs.

The memory of pouring it along her blade came unbidden. Tatsuki pulled her blade free, uncorking the bottle with her teeth as she started for the demon gate. The boys were coming now, still watching the staircase as they did. Liquid sunshine was poured across one side of her blade as starlight descended upon the other. Her blade drank the liquid in hungrily, not a drop hit the ground or bounced away. Inanna's tears. The only gift a priestess would receive from the heavens.

She looked over at Ichigo when the last droplet hit her steel. Not her only gift.

Orihime's voice called her, urgency coming out of her very being. The key was handed over, inserted into it's home. The wall that had been erected fell away as the jaws came together, crunching stone and shaking the room. They opened up moments later, a sloping slab of stone leading them further down. Through the mouth and into the belly of the beast.

"That could have been more ominous," Chad remarked as they entered.

"French judge gives a seven?" Tatsuki tried to joke back.

Uneasy laughter burbled up from each of them as they hurried through the hallway. This place was old, older than heian era and meiji, older than the warring states. Thick slabs of stone were silent, words forgotten centuries ago. They carried only the story of God, carvings as fresh as the day they'd been made. Images of the Ereskigal watched as they passed her by, stoney eyes following them. Higher and up they travelled through the tunnel, until they reached a large courtyard. She'd been here before. Not as Tsuki, but when Clacker took her home the first night. The petrified tree was still standing, pristine ribbons fluttering from it's crystalized branches. The door that had led her home was replaced by a massive gate. Millions upon millions of stones formed the back wall, shades of sand and earth and mud, all leading to an archway that could have easily fit Tokyo Tower inside of it.

Her death would open the gate.

The wicked giggle of memory sounded from behind the ancient tree as a wall of energy separated Tatsuki from her friends. She didn't look back when the others began to shout; a cold blue hand began to slide along the bark of the sacred tree. Memory came next, smiling at her seductively as she wound her form out from behind the stone.

"I knew you'd come." She sounded so pleased. "You always came for me."

"Maybe to kill you," Tatsuki lifted her gun and fired. The kodachi was resting against her lower back, snug between her waistband and her skin.

Memory's body jerked back from the shot. Nearly to her heart, the magic of her ammunition had done far more damage. A gaping hole was weeping indigo blue. The demon's face warped as she came at Tatsuki, fingers morphing into claws as she moved. She had time to fire one more shot before she was forced to dodge the killer.

There was pain in the woman's eyes. There was anger and hurt.

Tatsuki raised her gun once more when memory ran into the wall of energy. She could see Ichigo pounding against the wall, screaming at them both. She could see Orihime fighting to enter and Chad ans Ishida.

"You always come for me," Memory bit out. "Always."

Tatsuki was surprised when memory began to summon orbs of energy rather than rush her again. They spun above the demoness for a moment before descending upon Tatsuki in a spiral. It was one thing to dodge a spiting bat, another to avoid a whip-like appendage, these were faster, these bled the pain of centuries of rejection and betrayal. The feeling of those emotions alone were enough to make Tatsuki lose her step. One of the orbs barely missed her, embedding itself into the ground before bursting. The demoness was moving again, Tatsuki didn't have to see her to know this. She could only get up and run, whirling to fire at the woman. The shot sent her back, stunning her for the barest of seconds. Enough for Tatsuki to fire at her twice more, the enhanced lead embedding itself in her chest.

She was weakening. The emotions rolling off of her stronger than before, so thick that Tatsuki herself was nearly caught up in them. There was no fear of this woman. There was no fear of entrapment or pain. There was only hurt. There was only rejection.

The orbs came at her once more. One of them grazing her shoulder and delivering a blow so powerful the priestess almost fell to her knees and sobbed.

Tatsuki didn't run this time. She held her ground as the demoness came at her. She dropped her gun. Memory slowed, coming to a halt in front of Tatsuki; her claws were still ready to tear the flesh and her fangs were still bared.

"I gave you words." Tatsuki's voice was low and soft. "Why didn't you use them?"

"You didn't give me the right ones."

Memory was no demon. The test itself had been her demon. The lingering feelings of resentment, the green eyed devil of jealousy and the monster of her own rage. Tatsuki raised her arms to the creature in front of her. The creature of her own making. The creature who had followed her in had become twisted and torn, a mockery of the beauty she'd once been. The cold skin touched Tatsuki's own, ice tears falling from even colder eyes.

Tatsuki slid the blade from it's sheathe and into the back of the woman in her arms.

She could feel it in her own back. She could feel the light of the sun stabbing into her heart as the steel absorbed a piece of her soul. Memory's eyes looked into her own, full of physical pain and regret. Euphoric joy was radiating out of them as well.

The kodachi had absorbed her completely when the veil fell between herself and her friends. The pain in her back had not lessened when memory disappeared. It had worsened. It had combined with a constricting feeling around her wrists and ankles and the cold of night. She fell to her knees as her own blood bled through her shirt. She was dying.

"Tatsuki!"

Shun shun reiki was flying towards her, Orihime just behind.

"No!" Tatsuki waved them off, trying to stand instead. "No, I need, I need to be on the alter."

Chad was the one to pick her up. The one to do as she asked while Orihime pleaded with her. Ishida was still watching the world around them, arms wrapped around Orihime's shaking form. She felt the cold stone of the alter on her back. Pressure to match the ghost feeling that had afflicted her. Stone to drink her dry. It was a vacuum, stealing away every drop and every breath. The unseen binding on her wrist and ankles were slowing her movement. Keeping her from raising the blade fully.

"Ichigo," she called. She pressed the kodachi into his hand. "I need you to finish it. It won't just let me die."

"No." He was shaking his head, fury and pain in his eyes. "I can't, you're asking too much. I can't do this."

"You have to," Tatsuki whispered as she felt the bindings tighten on her throat. "Do this now, and I'll come back. Don't, and I'm lost."

She could feel the pain in his eyes as his hands closed around the hilt. She could feel trepidation from someone unseen. She could feel wind from a place unknown and smell the fresh earth and stale blood of a sacrificial stone. She could hear the screams of many beasts spilling into the courtyard and she could feel them begging for scraps.

"Hurry."

It didn't hurt.

Memory had never wanted her to feel pain.

The rush past life and into death was overwhelming. She could feel herself fall apart at the seams as the gift of rebirth spilled out across the courtyard. The gift of the goddess was restoring life to Shizukami. A rest stop between one world and the next, dry earth drank in the pain and the joy of her life. The stone tree burst into bloom, ribbons lost amongst the leaves and the blossoms. The many beasts were changed creatures; men and women and children, restored to their true state as the blinding light of crimson and indigo spread out further. Over the walls and through the tunnels, opening doors sealed away and allowing these victims sanctuary.

The energy that had spilled out came back in a shot. It filled her body with the collected sorrow and pain of each tormented soul lost within Shizukami before ejecting itself from her form once more.

The swell of sorrow targeted the sealed gate of the giris clan. The massive doors swinging open like the wings of a butterfly and accepting those lost souls into the afterlife. Into the fields of a place all of them knew deep within their being. Four of them better than the one who lay dying.

Ichigo could see the light fading from her eyes. He saw the glaze of death take her from him. Taken again. The joy of those murdered, abused, of those who'd been lost in their own minds was of no use to him. The sound of Orihime's tears to his left and Chad's pained moan to his right and Ishida's harsh breathing were of no use to him. She was gone and all he had was a blue blade in his hands. Why had she made him do this?

It was the fingers reaching out from the wound above her heart that sparked hope. Crimson dyed skin was grasping desperately for purchase as the skin of Tatsuki's ever withering body split and spread open. The soft gray dot on the flesh of her palm made Ichigo take the hand into his own. The feel of her hand in his own triggered the shift from Shizukami into the living world. They left the spirits of the reborn behind, moving from courtyard to clearing. The walls of stone replaced with endless trees.

He pulled as the ribs cracked open, spreading like the petals of a flower to reveal the bloody form of the woman he loved. She'd been reborn. The light in her eyes was back and even though she was covered in blood, he kissed her.

"No!"

Tatsuki wasn't fast enough to dodge the blade her mother was sending at her. Ichigo instead threw himself in between the woman and his beloved. It burned where the blade entered between his ribs, but not nearly so hot as the fury in Yuuko's eyes.

He watched the fire go out.

Tatsuki was leaning on him, arm extended and holding her blade tight as she drove it into her mother's chest. Her tears left a trail in the blood on her cheeks as she wept apologies to the woman in front of her.

"T...Tsuki," Yuuko's eyes widened before she slumped forward.

Ichigo winced as her hand tilted the blade of her dagger. The woman in his arms was weeping atop the blossom of ash and dust. It was starting to push the limits of what he could process. He wanted Tatsuki safe and he wanted his side to stop hurting. He turned to look for Orihime, surprised when he saw her holding his little sister Yuzu. She was unconscious, but Orihime still kept her hand around his sister's wrist and her arm around her pajama clad chest. To his left, Chad was holding an older woman in an apron, busty and similarly unaware of the world around them.

Ishida was standing alone.

"My father is on the ground." The quincy pointed. The good doctor was laying on the ground, a bruise swelling the left side of his face.

Rather than holding him back or struggling or taking a blade, Ishida had simply punched his father. Ichigo couldn't help the crooked grin that climbed onto his face. It was too much. The whole night had been too much and even as he fought the bubble of hysteric laughter, he could feel four people approaching. Rukia and Grimmjow, along with two others.

He took his shirt off and wrapped the now silent priestess in it. She'd started to fall into the same state of giddiness he had. His arms wrapped tighter around her, drawing his attention back to the wound in his side.

"Uhm, Orihime?" He gestured to his injury.

"Oh my!"

Grimmjow and Rukia burst through the tree line as Orihime healed Ichigo. Not once had he released the priestess. Not once had he seemed interested in anything other than getting healed up and making sure Tatsuki was holding up. She would collapse into tears soon. Chad knew this. He'd seen her reaching the threshold more times than anyone in this clearing.

"Who is that?" Rukia asked. The blue haired arrancar was hovering in front of Ichigo and Tatsuki, hope of recognition flickering his eyes.

"I assume it is a member of the Unagiya family," Chad adjusted his hold on the woman. "They were vassals of the Arisawa clan in the past." Rukia nodded in understanding. Whether she truly did, Chad couldn't say. She seemed to. "Will you be able to return her home?"

"Of course," Rukia nodded. Her gaze flickered over to the trio beside the alter. "We got a message from soul society before the barrier fell."

"The souls of the tormented," Chad said. Rukia nodded. "They've been collecting inside of Shizukami."

"Apparently we used to receive them once a year until the last priestess died." Rukia let out a breath, a smile falling across her face. "It really makes sense doesn't it? Ichigo would be destined for a woman as singular as he was."

Chad nodded in agreement. He couldn't imagine either deserving anything less.

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The End.

I mean it.

Seriously. Go away.

But leave a review ^_^

I would really like to thank my readers before you go though. I've never had so many fans from around the world, and it's really been so inspiring. So thank you all for sticking with me, and Tatsuki, through this. I might publish a few one shots regarding the time at Shiba. But that's it. And possibly the day Ichigo moves in. Probably. I have to explain Memory too, so she might get something.


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